Hunting the Hunter
by DreadNot
Summary: AU. In the 1950s Walter is Hellsing's primary weapon. A vampire sets out to see if the Angel of Death is as incorruptible as he thinks. Very AU AxW.
1. Everything Begins Somewhere

**Author's Note Preface:** I stick within the site's TOS when it comes to ratings, so know now that there are NC-17 scenes in this fic that you can't read here. You can find those on aff net; the link is in my profile. The differences are in chapters 10, 17, and 24. **This is AU.** That's an important point to make. The "what if?" is what if Abraham van Helsing thought that he had managed to kill Dracula and went on to found Hellsing without the servant vampire secret weapon. In my mind, everything flows logically from there. Whether it will flow as logically in the reader's mind is anybody's guess. It also means that I get to throw canon outcomes to the four winds and do whatever I please. There are many OCs, but there are many manga canon characters used in AU manners.

* * *

_A shocked gasp. "Don't."_

_A soft shushing and another gasp._

_"No…"_

•••

A sharp rap of footsteps broke the silence in the mist-shrouded streets. Slowly, the tapping approached and a figure emerged from the fog, straight-backed and slender, with a shaggy mop of hair.

Something glowed red, like a scarlet eye winking open for a moment. Then the figure removed the cigarette from his mouth and blew out a last cloud of smoke to merge with the fog before flicking the cigarette into the gutter.

When the flood of rats boiled out of the sewer drain at the curb, he barely paused. In the milky illumination provided by the occasional street lights, they were more a roiling in the mist above the ground than a visible threat.

The figure made a graceful gesture with his hands, almost as though he were parting curtains, or perhaps the sea, as Moses had. The tide of rats parted with the gesture, the poor lighting and the fog hiding the shattered bodies of the ones that were in the path of the barely noticeable flicker in front of him.

He came clearer, a young man dressed in crisply pressed trousers, a shirt so starched and white it practically gleamed, and a tightly-tailored waistcoat. He walked through the bodies without a glance down, moving with such precision that not a hair or speck of blood clung to his cuffs, nor marred the impeccable shine of his shoes.

He wasn't there for rats. He was there for other vermin.

He stopped in the town square and leaned against the base of the statue there while he lit another cigarette. It was apparent that he didn't care that the pale grey-white figure seemed to be staring disapprovingly down at his casual disrespect.

With his back propped against the pedestal, he couldn't have seen the statue begin to move.

"You know," he said conversationally to the air in front of him. "I never did learn who that statue was of, but one thing I do know?"

The thing above him froze, its eyes suddenly flaring red.

"It was of a woman."

What came next was an explosion of motion – the former-statue leaping at the young man, the youth springing into action and away from the pedestal, both figures moving with blurring speed.

What would a bystander see? Little, one might assume. A blur of grey-white. A blur of black and white. And then they might see the attacker standing alone in the square, cocking its head to listen for the heartbeat of its prey.

"You'll have to do better than that, if you want to catch me," came the taunting voice, whirling the not-statue to see that its target was standing where _it_ had waited, atop the pedestal.

"You don't even know who you're hunting now, do you?" The young man took the still-lit cigarette from his lips, smoke drifting out of his mouth along with his words. "You don't even know that you're already dead."

The hunter bared fangs in a snarl, bringing to mind one word – _vampire_ – a word to strike fear.

But not in this one's heart. The human (presumably) put the cigarette between his lips, held out a hand, and crooked a finger at the vampire in an unmistakable invitation.

The vampire took the invitation and sprang off the ground in a leap that might as well have been flight.

Again the young man brought up his hands in the gesture that had parted the sea of rats. This time, he turned on his heel, one hand drawing something as tangible as a cobweb through his teeth while an almost invisible web wove itself in the air before him.

The vampire had enough time to register shock on its face before its leap transformed into an almost random flight of splattering gore. The young man who had just reduced a vampire into so much bloody waste leapt into the air and landed lightly on the cobbles below. The wet slap of meat hitting the pedestal resounded in the quiet square for a moment, and then there was silence.

Silence broken by slow clapping.

A girl emerged from the shadows, still applauding. She was tiny, almost frail, clad in a white hat and coat. Her midnight black hair and equally dark eyes were stark contrasts against the light cloth and her alabaster skin.

No. Not alabaster, the youth corrected himself. Marble. Cool, hard, marble, with fine blue veining underneath.

This girl was no human.

"Well done," she said in a clear, chiming voice. She sounded as young as she looked. He'd seen ones that had been taken young before, but this one was different somehow.

"Will you tell me your name, Hunter?"

She was far enough across the square that she would have time to react if he tried to do to her what he had done to the other vampire.

He'd also been sent here for that one, not a little girl. Not every vampire had to die if they kept themselves out of the human eye and kept their depredations among the criminal element.

Sir Arthur called it symbiosis – something mutually beneficial for both parties. As opposed to parasites like the one he had just destroyed.

"Walter Dornez," he said at last, decision made.

"Ah…." The girl sighed delightedly. "The Angel of Death. I have heard your name, servant of Hellsing. It is said that none can compare to you… in battle."

"None can," Walter said matter-of-factly. "No vampire can stand against me and survive."

He remembered his cigarette and took a drag, his eyes never leaving the girl's. "What is your name, then? We were unaware that there was another vampire in this town."

"You may call me Mihaela."

Her gaze was compelling. Walter thought he could just fall into it and…

_No!_ He tore his eyes away from her face and focused on her hands instead.

"Well done," she commended, sounding almost proud of him. "I see that you are more than just a pretty face."

Walter clenched his hands into fists and bit back a growl. "Don't try that again. Trying to compel an agent of Hellsing is a capital offense." He looked back up at Mihaela's face, but concentrated on her mouth, avoiding her eyes. "And in this, I am judge, jury, and executioner."

"You can't blame a girl for trying, can you?" Her mouth shaped itself into a pretty pout. "After all, you're the boogeyman for my kind. I had to know you'd earned that reputation."

"I've more than earned it," Walter said firmly. "And unless you have something else for me, I'm done here."

Mihaela's pout melted into a smile, tiny fangs just peeking over her lips before she melted back into the shadows. "Nothing else now, Angel, but I'm so pleased we had this opportunity to meet."

•••

"Mihaela?" Arthur pulled open one of his desk drawers and removed a crystal decanter and two tumblers. He held one up to Walter and raised an eyebrow, then put it away when the younger man shook his head.

"Yes, sir. She said her name was Mihaela. She was neither aggressive nor threatening, but I've not heard or read her name mentioned anywhere and I felt it was important that you know this detail of the mission."

Sir Arthur Hellsing poured himself a generous measure of whiskey and put the decanter back in the drawer. "Mihaela…. Interesting."

"You know her, sir?" Walter was surprised by his employer's behavior. Arthur rarely drank, and even more rarely did it in front of his retainer.

"No." Arthur took a drink and grimaced slightly before getting up to scan the many books that lined his study walls. "But the name is, I think, Romanian." With a small sound of triumph he plucked a book off a shelf and opened it to flip through the pages.

"Here it is. Mihaela – the feminine form of Slovene Mihael and Romanian Mihai, both meaning 'Who is like God?'"


	2. When Is Like Not Like?

_"Shh…"_

_"I can't…" A sharp intake of breath._

_"You can."_

_"I don't want…"_

_"You do."_

•••

Men didn't wear their hair long. Not in 1950. Not unless you were Hellsing's retainer, who had taken to pulling his unruly hair back in a ponytail because he refused to cut it. If asked why, he wouldn't have a response, but he lived outside of normal society anyway. What was a bit of hair?

Then the man walked into the pub.

Walter glanced up from his pint and back down before finding his attention drawn back. The man was tall – taller even than he was, which was notable, since Walter towered over most people. He also wore his hair long, straight and black and flowing over his shoulders.

Walter looked back down at his drink. So the man had long hair. So he was tall. So his suit did nothing to hide the fact that his body was trim and muscular. So there was a certain mystery to the dark glasses he wore that shielded his eyes even on the sides.

So what? Men didn't look at each other that way.

Deliberately, he turned away from the booth where the stranger had found a seat. He smiled at the girl behind the bar and asked her name.

Maeve had been trying to get his attention all evening. She was happy to tell him about herself, her work, her family, her tiny flat just around the corner. On and on while Walter smiled and nodded and the words ran in one ear and out the other.

He let his eyes wander to the mirror behind the bar. There was the back of Maeve's head, and his reflection looking back at him, patrons at the dart board, the one waitress the pub kept other than Maeve, and no long-haired stranger.

Good. The man had been distracting and Walter couldn't put his finger on just why.

"… do you do?"

"Hm?" Walter looked away from the mirror and back to the girl. "Oh. Nothing too interesting. I'm just a rich man's servant."

•••

Because she asked him to, saying it made her nervous to be out alone so late at night, Walter walked Maeve home. The girl clung to his arm and even went so far as to feel his bicep through his coat, which he pretended not to notice.

The night was cool and clear, a full moon riding high in the sky. It was the sort of night that always made Walter restless. It was a good night for hunting.

Maeve's flat really was just around the corner, just as promised. Walter walked her to the front steps of the building and waited for her to unlock the door before turning away.

"Walter?"

Looking back, Maeve was standing in the open door. "Yes?"

She bit her lip and looked into the building. "Do you… do you want to come in?"

He thought about it for a moment, and then shook his head and lied. "Thank you, but I have to get home or I'll be in trouble."

He pretended not to see the disappointment on her face when he turned away and walked away without looking back. If he had, he might have seen the figure slide out of the shadows and pull Maeve off the stairs and out of the light.

•••

Walter lit a cigarette and shook out the match before flicking it into the rubbish bin that stood near his riverside park bench. The moon sparkled on the water and the city sounds kept him company while he sat and thought about much of nothing at all.

"The Angel of Death takes a holiday?"

The light voice spun him in his seat to see the little girl – Mihaela. No little girl, he knew. He berated himself for his carelessness; had she wanted it, he would be dead now.

He didn't bother to sound friendly when he asked her, "Are you hunting in London?"

Mihaela glided over and sat on the other end of the bench, kicking her dangling feet. "Will anyone miss someone who would try to prey on an innocent such as me?"

Symbiosis. If she preyed on those who victimized children, she was benefiting society, not harming it. Was that such a bad thing? Was she evil to live that way? If he thought about it, how was he so different from her? He also hunted the predators.

Walter blew a cloud of smoke into the air and shook his head. "No. No one will miss them and I will not trouble you if those are your only targets."

"Dangerous and not a hypocrite," the vampire observed.

"If you say so," Walter said, slouching back on the bench. "Why are you here?"

She could have deliberately misconstrued his question as asking why she was in London, but didn't. "You."

The answer straightened his spine and evaporated the last lingering effects of the drinks he'd had. "What does that mean?"

"It means that everyone wants company at times, and you are the only human with whom I do not have to pretend."

Walter thought she sounded lonely. Did monsters get lonely? He never did.

Did he?

"How old are you really?" Definitely not the child she appeared to be, but how long had she been trapped in this semblance of innocence while everything and everyone around her changed?

"Older than this century. Or the last one." Mihaela gave him a sly smile. "If I asked you for a cigarette, would you tell me I'm too young?"

He'd never listened when people told him that, and he wasn't at least one hundred fifty years old. He glanced over at the little vampire and passed her his cigarette, only thinking about it after the fact that she would taste him on it.

"Who keeps you company, Hunter?"

The question surprised him, but then, he'd never sat down and had a conversation with a vampire before.

"I suppose I keep myself company," he said after a moment's thought. "I have to pretend, too, with most people outside of Hellsing. And inside Hellsing… people don't keep company with Death."

Yet here he was sitting by the river and sharing that with a vampire. Would he be speaking to her if she weren't a little girl, if only on the outside?

"No. They wouldn't, would they?" Mihaela shook her head and took a drag from his cigarette. "Humans fear death, and they fear those who don't." She said it with as much emotion as one might mention that the stars hung over the world.

"And what of the girl?"

Walter shot her a glare now and stood up. "Were you following me?"

Mihaela laughed gaily and shook her head. Her tiny figure and childishly dangling feet were a jarring contrast to her words and the casual manner in which she drew on the cigarette. "No. I smell perfume. Not an older woman's choice of scent, and it is on you, not something you passed through."

She watched him walk to the railing at the riverbank and look down into the water. How would he answer her? Neither of them knew until he spoke.

"She is no one. I'll barely remember her name tomorrow."

The little vampire smiled approvingly and slid off the bench to join him at the railing, climbing up a few yards away from him to lean over the top rail and watch the water swirl by below. "Attachments are dangerous for ones such as us."

"I am not like you."

Mihaela tilted her head toward him, eyes flashing red before going dark again. She gave him a sphinx-like smile and slid off the fence to walk away into the gloom.

Her last comment floated back to him out of the night. "Aren't you, Angel?"

•••

"I don't like this, Walter." Arthur gave his retainer a stern look. "A vampire is trying to worm her way into your confidences."

"I don't trust her, sir, and I'm hiding nothing from you," Walter protested.

Abraham van Helsing's son rose from his seat and paced to the tall window to look pensively at the full moon outside. "She has sought you out twice. She's stalking you. Never forget that to all of them, you are prey. Even to this little girl who hunts the hunters."

_Hunter._ She'd called him that more than once. "I don't forget, sir. I never forget."


	3. You Can Turn A Murder Into Art

_"I…." A hissing sigh._

_"Can do this."_

_"But I want…."_

_"This."_

•••

Was she halfway through a door? Or a book? Lighting her way? Or about the set the pages afire? Was she holding a candle or a stick growing a leaf?

Walter shook his head at the print hanging on the wall and moved on. Why was he in this gallery looking at surrealist art? What value did it add to his life?

Maybe he was "broadening his horizons," lured in by the exhibit's name, "The Seven Spectral Perils." More likely, he'd admit to himself, he was people watching and telling himself stories about the people he observed.

There was the young couple, barely his age, who were there as an excuse to their parents. "Oh yes, Mum, we're going to an art opening." It was probably a good thing the girl's mum didn't know that what her daughter really meant was, "Oh yes, Mum, we're going to a gallery where this clean cut boy is going to pull me behind a statue and do things for which a professional would charge extra."

Over by the Third Peril were a dowager and her young male companion. He was beautiful. She had once been. This evening before they left her opulent London flat, he had swallowed his revulsion and earned that Savile Row suit he was wearing.

"Do you think he closes his eyes and thinks of his lover when he's with her?" asked a deep voice, unexpectedly close to his ear.

Walter whipped his head around to confront his own reflection in a pair of red tinted lenses. Lenses worn by a tall man with long black hair that lay across the shoulders of his white suit in a stark contrast too perfect to be accidental. As was his presence here after Walter had seen him at the pub the week before.

"You were watching them, yes?"

The man had a faint accent, a subtle sharpness, maybe German? He smiled down at Walter and the young man's fingers twitched with warring urges to violence, or perhaps to touch that shining fall of hair to see if it was as soft as it looked.

Ridiculous.

Walter dropped a mask cool disinterest over those thoughts. "Do I know you?"

"You may call me Doru, and we have a mutual acquaintance." He nodded again toward the couple. "I saw you watching them. I also enjoy studying people."

"Which mutual acquaintance?" Walter asked, not looking away to the woman and her kept man.

"Mihaela."

The vampire girl who Arthur was sure was stalking him had sent another of her kind to him? Walter's expression clouded with suspicion.

"She sent you after me?"

Doru shook his head, eyes unreadable behind the tinted lenses. "No. But we spoke. She told me that the Angel of Death was a reasonable man and I was curious. I do enjoy studying people, but it is rare indeed when I can speak with one who knows what I am and knows no fear."

What he was. This one passed well. His teeth were white and, as far as Walter could see, fangless. His skin, though pale, carried a faint pink undertone not common to the undead. This vampire had fed recently.

If Walter were to touch his skin, would he be warm? What would his eyes look like?

What stupid questions. Stupid for myriad reasons.

"You have hunted tonight," he challenged.

"I have," the vampire answered calmly. "No innocent fell to me."

"You are like her, then? Mihaela?"

Doru laughed at his question. "We have known each other since I was a child," he said, still smiling.

Walter considered that idea. Did the little girl play with this man when he was a little boy? Did she seduce him into vampirism?

If she had, she had waited until he was a man, not a child.

"Why do you two not keep each other company? Why seek me out? I am death for your kind, not someone with whom to have late night chats."

The vampire's smile faded and he shook his head. Without seeing his eyes, Walter wasn't sure how to interpret his expression. "We know each other too well. We are not enemies, but we cannot be together the way you ask. And so we are, both in our ways, alone, surrounded by those who can never know us."

Perhaps that was what drove vampires to monstrosity. From personal experience, Walter knew that it was easy to be a monster in a vacuum. Without someone to keep as a moral compass, it was easy to get lost in the joy of the hunt and the kill.

Without Hellsing to provide an outlet, the gallows would probably have been his fate.

"So you come to the one human who does not fear you or your kind."

"I come to see for myself the one of whom Mihaela speaks so highly. Now tell me, do you think that young man thinks of his lover when he attends to his companion there?"

Walter realized they'd come full circle and were now back where they had started.

He looked back at the couple and noted the way the young man's eye wandered, and not to the art on the wall, nor to any of the attractive women there. It seemed his tastes ran rather differently, if the attention he paid to one of the waiters' backsides was any indicator.

"Probably." Walter turned away from the couple and the vampire and went to examine another of the Seven Spectral Perils. A fading sunflower. A cocoon or an eye in its center. Set out as a plate or perhaps the main dish between a knife and fork. All on a sort of apocalyptic orange-yellow background.

Somehow he could picture it hanging in some vampire's lightless cellar chamber in a mockery of the sun the creature had forsaken.

"I would not pay this sort of money for Marilyn Monroe's pants! And you want it for _prints?_ Not even the originals? That's robbery, sir!"

Walter turned to see the source of the rude outburst and observed a portly "gentleman" accosting the gallery's owner with his complaints.

"How dare you pass this tripe off as art? Look at this!" The man waved a pink hand at the Seventh Peril. "My two year old nephew has made art better than this."

Doru joined Walter and murmured, "What do you think is this man's story?"

Walter dipped into his waistcoat and pulled out a cigarette case. "You make a study of humans. You tell me," he challenged while he went about appeasing his nicotine habit.

"He's a chartered accountant, of course," Doru said after a moment's thought. "He takes these opportunities to have the power he has nowhere else in his life. Except…" He paused and smiled slyly, "At home.

"He's unmarried. Has never even been kissed, in fact. He is a collector. What do you think he collects?"

Walter looked at the choleric little man and shrugged. "Coins? He's an accountant in your story."

"Dolls," Doru said, smile broadening. "He collects porcelain dolls and keeps them in a locked room with the window boarded over. He goes into that room every night and he tells them about his day, about the imaginary slights he suffered, about the horrible vengeance he will wreak upon the world.

"And in his mind, they applaud."

Walter raised an eyebrow and laughed quietly. "That is an unexpected interpretation."

The exchange between the angry patron and the gallery owner was escalating and shortly a pair of the waiters came to escort the gentleman out in a not-entirely-gentle manner.

Walter burst out laughing, attracting a few disapproving stares, but he just couldn't help imagining the man going home to tell his dolls all about it.

"I think we should leave it with that." Walter tilted his head up at the vampire, still smiling faintly. "I have seen all I wish to see here."

Part of that was a lie.

•••

Rufus Statham slammed into his house, slammed the door closed, slammed his hat down on the rack, and then carefully, oh so carefully, unlocked the special door.

Behind that door his lovelies awaited his return.

The light always burned in there. They didn't want to be alone in the dark and he couldn't blame them.

Rows of shiny eyes stared unblinkingly at him from porcelain faces and Rufus felt the angry knot in his chest start to release. They would understand. They appreciated him.

There was Jessica, and Elizabeth. Dorothy and Amelia. Sarah and Rebecca.

And…

And that one wasn't one of his. He would never buy one so large and with _red_ eyes.

•••

"How was the gallery?" Arthur asked when Walter reported in.

"I didn't understand the art," Walter answered honestly. "But it was still interesting. I wonder more about the mind behind such fanciful creations than the art itself."

Hadn't the boy been more light-hearted once upon a time? Twenty was too young to be so serious. Arthur couldn't help but feel responsible because Hellsing was his organization, but someone of Walter's temperament was fortunate to find a legal outlet. "If it makes you think, then it has fulfilled its purpose. And did you see anything else interesting this evening?"

Walter answered without thinking. "No, sir. Unless you count the man who made a racket about the expense of the art."

_Or the vampire who had made him laugh? _

* * *

AN: _Doru_ is a Romanian name meaning "longing."


	4. More Human Than Human

_Gasps no more, but panting._

_"Stop. Now."_

_"You don't want that."_

_"I do want…. Stop."_

_"And leave you wanting?"_

•••

Walter's restless feet led him through London's midnight streets again. Arthur insisted he should have occasional nights away from the manor and his duties, that he should have some connection to the world outside of Hellsing. Walter wondered just how this was supposed to make him feel more connected to the people he protected.

He'd gone back to the pub where he'd met Maeve, thinking perhaps to take her up on her offer if she made it again. But the man behind the bar had gruffly told him that she'd stopped coming to work a few weeks back and moved out of her flat without leaving any way to contact her.

Walter wondered if she would have stayed around a little longer if he'd gone up to her flat with her. That question was moot, though and he dismissed the what ifs and put the girl from his mind.

He stopped for a pint in a different pub, but left when he realized he had nothing to say to most of the people there, and no small amount of contempt for many of them. They went about their lives in a blissful fog, accepting the world around them at face value. His role in helping to keep them in that fog had apparently made him cynical.

So, back out onto the streets. Reflected street lights flashed off store front windows, unpredictably dazzling. Cars rumbled past, and the occasional person or couple or group walked by, sometimes on silent business of their own, sometimes boisterous with drink and company.

Walter passed them all with his hands stuffed in his pockets to keep his fingers warm, and a cigarette dangling from his lip. In contrast to life during the war, the store windows were full of merchandise - clothes and furniture and the latest advances in housewares. He kept track of the latter for Hellsing's household and cared little for the former two.

He stopped for a moment to watch a man in a department store window rearranging the display. Here a man in a dapper wool suit, there a woman in an evening gown and wrap, and Junior following along in short pants and a suit coat of his own. He picked them up and shifted them around, subtly changing their places in relation to each other, tilting a head here, raising a hand there, until at last they gave the impression of a content and cohesive trio.

If only it were so simple.

He moved on from the man in the window and glanced into the next one at the display of young girls at play. The window dresser had apparently not finished with this one, as he could see no reason why the one mannequin would be facing away, rather than turned toward the street to show off the winter white suit she was wearing.

Then she moved and turned to face the window, a smile breaking over her face when she saw him. Mihaela.

She held up a finger, _One second,_ and darted out of the back of the window display and around to the one with the man working in it. She exchanged a few words with him, pointed out the window toward Walter, and nodded when he said something to her that looked to be an admonishment.

Walter could read the words, _Thank you,_ on her lips, and then she threw her arms around the man's neck in a quick hug and gave him a chaste peck on the cheek.

Moments later she exited a side door and came up the sidewalk to join Walter.

"What were you doing in there?" he asked without preamble.

Mihaela pouted at him for a moment before dropping the act. "Is that any way to greet a friend?"

"If I had a friend here, I would greet her differently. What were you doing in there?"

"Fine," she huffed. "I was hunting. This man found me and asked why I was out. I told him my parents were fighting and that I didn't want to go home, so he offered to bring me here."

She turned back toward the window to wave and flash a bright smile, even though the window dresser probably couldn't see the dark street from his lit display the way the vampire had.

Picking up a brisk pace, she walked away from the store, passing other lit display windows without attention to spare for them. "I thought he would be dinner, but he was honestly a kind man who had no designs on me other than to give me a warm place to stay until I could go home."

Walter's long legs had no trouble matching her much shorter stride. "Would you have let him go if I had not come by? Or were you waiting for me so you could show that you aren't always a killer?"

The little vampire looked up at him through dark lashes and smiled with her eyes while her lips turned up the barest degree. "Such pride you have, to think that I would engineer that just for your sake."

Walter took two cigarettes from his case and lit one, passing it to Mihaela before lighting one for himself. "I am not slothful, greedy, gluttonous, envious, rage-full nor lustful; if I must bow to one of the deadly sins, let it be pride."

Mihaela drew on the cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke before saying, "How interesting, then, that the Angel of Death shares the sin that shook Heaven and made angels fall."

Walter frowned down at the girl who was not a girl. "At least my pride is not so great that I would question God."

The vampire turned guileless eyes up at him. "You hunt my kind just because we are as God made us. Do you question that God has a plan?"

"Humans hunt wolves that prey on our sheep. In India, they hunt the tigers that prey on villages. To be a hunter is as much a part of the plan as anything else, and not everyone is suited for it."

Mihaela's smile grew. "So you, the Hunter, do God's will?"

While they spoke, they traveled away from the shopping district. Walter didn't really know where they were going, but it wasn't the destination that mattered at that point.

"Hellsing's insignia says as much: 'We are on a mission from God.'"

"But you are talking a vampire. You're even sharing a cigarette. How does that fit in your world where you are the shepherd and I am the wolf?"

He was easily two feet taller than she was, but she was right, she was the wolf. Why _was_ he talking to her?

"A good hunter must know those he hunts. If you are as you say, then you serve a purpose, and I must understand it. Then I will know when to hunt the rogues and when to leave the others to their work." Even as he spoke, he wondered if that was anything more than the flimsiest of excuses for something he didn't want to understand more deeply.

"Then I serve a purpose?" Mihaela stopped on the sidewalk and tilted her face up at him. "God's purpose?"

Walter stopped because she had, but wished they could keep walking rather than stopping. It gave the question greater weight and he didn't know how to answer.

"Well?" For once the tiny vampire didn't seem to be trying to look young and innocent. Her eyes were dark, hints of red flickering in and out of the irises.

When he didn't answer her quickly enough, she pursed her lips, eyes narrowing. "Maybe you should think on that. While you do, I must go. I did have other plans this evening, and they did not include keeping your unarguably charming company."

She spun and walked away, leaving Walter wondering what had just happened. Had he offended her?

He wasn't sure he liked the sound of "other plans." She had been hunting when she'd come across the good Samaritan. And then he had further distracted her.

Without thinking about his motives, Walter began to follow Mihaela as she moved farther from the shopping district and into less savory areas. Her white suit was luminous and easy to follow, even while he maintained as much distance as possible from his quarry without completely losing her altogether.

Her path took them closer to the river, the vampire girl leading the human man through the night on some journey with an unknown destination. Then a third person joined their travels.

A man slid out of the shadows and watched the tiny figure in white before leaving his place to follow her. Walter held back and followed the human instead, watching him suspiciously. He didn't think that this man was also going to offer her someplace safe and warm for the night. At least not honestly.

Their little train wound through more streets until Mihaela stopped at the distinctive glass dome that marked the entrance to the Greenwich foot tunnel. As a public highway, it was open twenty-four hours, but at this time of night, there was no traffic for the tunnel that led under the Thames to the Isle of Dogs.

Walter hung back while Mihaela passed through the open entrance and started down the spiral stairs. Her stalker – or her _other_ stalker – waited long enough for her to get well ahead of him on the stairs and then followed her in.

Her other other stalker considered leaving them both to their fates. Likely the girl needed no help with this man, although she had seemed unaware of anyone behind her.

It was curiosity that spurred him forward. He had to see. Some part of him still had difficulty reconciling her appearance with the reality of what she was.

No sound filtered up to Walter as he made his way down the stairs with the silent skill of a practiced hunter. He'd never liked the tunnel – the white tile-lined walls were too close, the sense of an entire river above his head too claustrophobic. It was too much like being buried alive for his comfort.

The white tiles under the tunnel's unforgiving lighting made for a glaring contrast with the blood that was the first thing to catch Walter's attention when he made it to the bottom of the stairs and into the tunnel proper.

Mihaela's stalker was a rag doll in her hold, his throat a ravaged horror as she tore into it again with a mouth full of gleaming white, razor-sharp teeth.

Incongruously enough, Walter's first thought was that they'd never looked like that when she was smiling at him. His second thought was that she was an incredibly messy and wasteful eater, based on the amount of blood that gleamed on the tunnel walls and soaked into the white suit she always seemed to be wearing.

He was torn – here was a vampire attacking and killing a human, but that human barely merited the title, given his obvious ill-intent toward someone he had thought was defenseless. It was too late to protect him and Walter wasn't sure he cared enough to want to if it weren't.

During the moments he conducted his internal debate, Mihaela finished with her meal and let the man drop, holding him carelessly by the collar as a real girl might with a dolly.

"Are you going to kill me now? Or would you agree that it's better that the man you watched stalking me met this fate instead of finding a truly defenseless target?" As she spoke, Walter observed that the blood on her face seemed to be sinking into her skin and disappearing.

So, too, did the blood on her clothes, and the blood that he had thought would "go to waste" on the floor and walls began to flow toward her, disappearing under her shoes as though it had never been there.

"What_ are_ you?" Walter tried not to gape, but he had never faced a vampire that behaved as this one.

Mihaela smiled, and once again the mask of a little girl settled over her face. With stolen blood warming and coloring her skin she would look as human as Walter, if it weren't for the limp body dangling forgotten in her hand. "I am the true undead. Not some pathetic creature that hasn't the sense to know that it should stay in its grave.

"Was this what you wanted to see when you followed me?"

Walter's gaze shifted from the man's ruined throat to Mihaela's face and back again before he deliberately met her eyes. "Yes. It was exactly what I needed to see. Don't come near me again. If you see me, go the other way. If you try to talk to me again, I'll kill you. Give Doru that message as well. It's more mercy than I usually give."

He turned on his heel without waiting for a response from the vampire and walked back toward the stairs, fighting to ignore the itching between his shoulder blades. He knew he shouldn't turn his back on a vampire after threatening to kill her, but he had a point to make – he wasn't afraid of her, no matter what scene she'd engineered for him. He'd seen worse.

Her only attack came in words: "I have never lied to myself or to you about what I am. Can you say the same?"

•••

Walter considered avoiding Arthur and his inevitable questions about his night out. The man seemed genuinely concerned that his retainer should not isolate himself too much.

He just didn't know how he would tell Arthur that a vampire had made him seriously question his own humanity. Shouldn't he have cared that Mihaela had killed a human being right in front of him? At least a little?

Arthur took the decision out of his hands, finding him in the hallway as Walter made his way back to his room, telling himself he'd just get tidied up before reporting to his employer.

He greeted the younger man and beamed. "Walter, my boy! How was the city tonight?"

_I watched a vampire rip a man's throat out and then attract the blood to herself like some sort of magnet. And the thing that bothers me the most is that it doesn't really bother me. _

"I think I'll need a few days to think about that before I can answer you." He bowed his head slightly to Arthur and pushed on toward his room where a hot shower and clean clothes awaited, leaving his employer to speculatively watch his departure.


	5. Hand Over Hand Up The Lifeline

_"There."_

_A shaky sigh._

_"Is that better?"_

_"Yes…."_

•••

London is a temperate city, but even it sees ice at times. In those times, much of the population wisely chooses to stay indoors, huddled for warmth with others of their kind. With ice slicking the streets and sidewalks and reflecting the moon on a bitingly cold, clear night, it looked like some view of a frigid future in which man had no part.

Into that brittle silence came sound – fast enough to call to mind playing cards clicking in bicycle spokes, because footsteps, even running, could not come so fast.

Or at least, they should not.

The stillness of the quiet grey-blue scene broke when a stick figure of a person, long black hair streaming behind, hurtled by, seeking some hidey hole – the rabbit going to ground to wait out the fox's departure.

Close on its heels came the fox – less exaggerated a figure than the first, but no slower.

Light glittered between the fox and his prey, a trick of moon on ice? If moonlight cut, perhaps. But moonlight, even on a night where the air was as crisply sharp as this one, could not sever the unlikely curl that bounced above the front-runner's forehead, leaving it to fall unheeded to the ground.

Closer now, the runner in front came clear as a gaunt woman, although gender was more a guess based on her hair than any other feminine attributes. Her pursuer dodged out of the shadows, and the moonlight highlighted his distinctive attire, giving him away as Walter Dornez.

Walter slipped on the ice and scrambled back up to follow her, but his moment of lost time was enough for her to tear a door off its hinges with a shrieking complaint of tortured metal. She threw the door back at the man chasing her and disappeared into a distinctively rounded building that heralded an entrance to a deep level shelter.

Built in response to the Germans' bombing during the war, most were repurposed or closed. This one had been locked up tight – safe against humans, but not against the vampire who tore her way through the door and ran down the steep spiral staircase into the pitch black lower level.

Her pursuer dodged the flying door and stopped at the head of the stairs. He cursed under his breath and pulled a small torch out of a pocket to flick it on and shine it down the stairs.

He could let her get away, or he could follow a vampire down into the dark with only a hand-held torch to light his way.

As though there was any question.

He started down the stairs, torch held in his left hand, nerves wound tight. He was doing something nigh on suicidal and he lived for this adrenaline rush. Maybe jumping out of a plane without a parachute was more fun, but this would have to do.

Walter had never sheltered in one, but he remembered that these shelters were set up to house thousands. The vampire could be hiding anywhere in the corridors.

Or, as was the case, she could be lurking at the bottom of the stairs, her back pressed into the slight indentation of the lift door next to the stairwell entrance. Her first blow knocked the torch out of his hand and tossed him against the wall in the small anteroom before the shelter proper.

The torch skittered across the floor and into the wall, casting crazily swinging shadows as it rolled. The back of Walter's head struck the wall and his vision flashed white, but a strong sense of self-preservation had his hands up and casting a net of wire before his sight had even cleared.

He could feel through his fingers that she had contacted the wires and changed direction almost as fast as a ricochet. As his vision returned, he could see that his torch was still on, and that the antechamber was empty save for him.

_Dammit!_

Leaning over to pick up the torch brought on a wave of nausea that Walter had to force down before he could straighten and look around. If he were wise, he'd probably turn around and leave now, call for the troops to come down and cordon off this area until a proper search and destroy could be conducted.

But where would the challenge be in that?

He shook his head to try to clear it, which only provoked a fresh wave of nausea and reminded him that he'd probably just bruised his brain. Not the best time to be shaking it around more.

Right, then. He drew a deep breath, pushed the pain aside while he returned to the hunter's mind, and opened the door that had swung shut behind the vampire.

A cry echoed up at him from one pitch black end of the tunnel. It sounded terrified, and Walter ran toward it. She might have found a human caretaker down here. In the dark? Regardless, she'd found someone.

Or some_thing._

At first he thought his eyes were deceiving him. The shadows were shifting crazily while he ran, the light was dim far in front of him as the torch could only do so much, and the flash of red on white on black must have been her.

Only her hair was black.

And the white had definitely been hair. Hair that moved almost of its own accord, a kelp forest in the tide floating around a tall figure. It wore something black and tight-fitting that merged in and out of the shadows that swarmed it and its prey.

And its prey was _his_ prey. Shoved against the wall with the thing's face buried against her throat, the vampire Walter had been chasing, whimpered and pushed helplessly at her attacker while he… Walter wanted that to be a trick of shadow, that obscene thrust of hip and body against hers.

Without thought, he lashed out with wires to destroy both. He might taunt his targets, but this? He was not that sort of monster.

One handed, he was handicapped. The creature that was attacking the vampire turned and threw her body into the slicing wave coming at him. It came at Walter with such force that even though she was turned into only so many pieces of meat, those pieces hit him with enough power behind them to knock him back and knock the torch from his hand.

There was only so much abuse the torch could take. With a tiny, unheard pop from the breaking bulb, the tunnel went black as a tomb.

Which way was out? Which way was the creature? He was going to die down there. He'd always known he was going to die young. What would Arthur do without him? Thoughts, there and gone in an instant while Walter caught his balance and tried to get his bearings.

And then it came, as fast as a shark striking in the water, a blow that bore him back onto the ground, cracking his head again and lighting his vision with a sheet of white light and pain. The thing sat on his chest and pinned his hands to the ground and finally Walter felt a surge of terror that cleared his eyes enough to see two glowing red points floating above his face.

Struggling did nothing but make his gorge rise, but lying still was hardly an option. He tried kicking, which only made the creature shift back off his chest and across the top of his thighs to pin them.

Finally, he lay still, breathing in sharp pants while he fought his stomach's rebellion.

A voice slithered out of the darkness under those scarlet motes. "Only human after all, Angel of Death?"

It knew who he was. The thought and the voice made his pulse jump, making his head throb so badly it was an effort of will not to cry out.

"I know you, Walter Dornez, agent of Hellsing, and Angel of Death. All vampires know you if they are wise." The eyes, those were what the red points had to be, came closer and Walter found himself unable to look away. He had a choice of the darkness behind his eyelids or watching the only thing he could see.

The eyes stared unblinkingly into his from inches away. "You are a puppet whose pride outstrips your intellect. The Angel of Death is just another piece of human meat that cowers helpless and blind in the dark." Cold breath brushed against his cheek followed by something colder and moist that traced his jaw, moving toward his mouth.

Walter's lips drew back in a grimace of disgust and he snapped his head forward, into the face of the thing holding him down. He had a moment's satisfaction before the vampire's eyes expanded to fill his vision with red and terror crashed down on him like a tidal wave to bear him under into an unknowing, unthinking blackness.

•••

A crash and snarl snapped his eyes open and a moment of panic washed over him in which he thought he was blind, then memory returned. The chase, the shelter, the vampiric rape, the attack and the_ eyes. _

Another sound of smashing. Shelter bunks? Storage boxes? He couldn't tell. Either the vampire was on a sudden inexplicable rampage that didn't include him, or something else was going on.

All he had to refer to was the sound. Walter scrabbled until he found a wall and pushed himself up, backing away from the sounds of destruction and hopefully toward an exit.

He caught his breath in a sudden silence and strained his ears for some sign of what was happening. Footsteps suddenly rattled toward him and he was swept off his feet and up in someone's arms to be borne away from where he was standing.

In moments there was a dizzying ascension around and around what had to be the spiral staircase and out into the freezing night, where the cold blue moonlight was the most welcome sight Walter had ever seen.

It limned his rescuer's face in silver. _Doru. _

The vampire carried him effortlessly away from the shelter entrance and down the street barely a city block before turning up the steps into a row home.

Walter had not had time to adjust to the fact that he was not going to die in the dark. Now, in less than a minute, he had gone from echoing darkness where his death awaited and into a warm and well-lit home where Doru gently set him in front of a crackling fire and knelt at his side.

He could always blame the concussion for his slow reaction time. It was preferable to remembering how easily the vampire in the shelter had rolled him into a red haze of terror.

The thought brought a wave of nausea he wasn't strong enough to fight down and he started to retch. Reaching for the nearest receptacle, Doru emptied kindling out on the floor and helped Walter lean over the canister that had held it.

The vampire supported Walter with an arm around him and held the loose hair away from the other man's face with his free hand. If he hadn't been preoccupied, Walter might have appreciated the generosity. If he'd been able to get past the humiliation of being in the position to begin with.

When he finally sat back on his heels and wiped his mouth, Doru left him for a moment and returned to kneel beside him with a glass of cold water.

"I heard the pursuit," he explained quietly before Walter could ask. "I am right on the path you two took and saw you out my window. I went outside and saw you both go down into the shelter. I waited and you did not return, but neither did she. After an hour, I went to see and found you and the other. We fought. I hurt him, and took the advantage to take you out of there."

Walter's hand went to his throat at the thought of nearly an hour spent in that creature's clutches. He was surprised and relieved to find the skin unbroken. "You rescued me. Why hadn't he killed me?"

"If I had to guess, it would be because there is no purpose in torturing an unconscious man," the vampire answered bluntly. "He appeared to be gathering supplies to that end."

"Why did you help me? After what I said to Mihaela."

The vampire regarded him seriously before gently touching his fingertips to Walter's cheek. "Because I thought that in time you would see that you were wrong about us."

Those tiny points of contact burned under Doru's cool fingertips. Walter drew back from the touch and attempted to stand, swaying unsteadily on his feet when he drew upright while the world narrowed to a tunnel and the nausea returned.

"I have to get back to Hellsing. Arthur will worry."

Doru rose smoothly to his feet and again put an arm around Walter to steady him. "You cannot get back on your own in this condition, and I cannot have Hellsing know where I live. You may call your leader to tell him that you have found safe shelter for the night and I will see that you get home tomorrow."

Walter considered protesting, but the vampire had rescued him from torture and death, or worse. He already owed him his life and the thought of trying to get back to Hellsing on a night like this in his condition was anything but appealing.

"Show me to the telephone."

•••

Arthur hung up the phone troubled by the way Walter's speech had slurred a little at the edges. If his retainer was going to start drinking to excess, he was going to get himself killed some night.

But he had reported that his quarry had been silenced and that he had a safe bed for the night, so perhaps it was for the best if the young man blew off some steam. And it was about damned time he did it in company, too. Feeling connected to humans rather than isolated from them would keep him from becoming a monster.

Perhaps his insistence that Walter get away from work now and then was paying off.


	6. What A Swell Party This Is

_"You want me to stop… this?"_

A shaky exhalation followed by a long pause.

"Tell me and I'll stop."

"No…."

"'No,' stop?"

"…No."   


•••

Soft bed, heavy eiderdown quilt, comfortable pillow. Walter's first thoughts before even opening his eyes were a quick assessment of the unfamiliar bed he woke in.

This was a bed in Doru's home.

He had slept under a vampire's roof. Was he _mad?_

Quite possibly. But Doru had rescued the young hunter from another of his kind who had been bent on killing and torturing him. Probably not in that order, but even that wasn't guaranteed when dealing with vampires.

He sat up and swung his feet off the bed, then stopped as his stomach kept swinging around independent of the rest of him. He braced a hand against the headboard and stared down at his bare feet, trying to get the vertigo and nausea under control.

After his head stopped spinning, Walter eased himself up onto his feet. He'd been concussed before. There were worse things, but shaking his brain around inside his skull generally wasn't a recipe for a good morning after. Or afternoon after? Or was it evening? Mid-winter in London made such distinctions difficult to make at times. No wonder vampires came to reside here. There were times in December and January when London received no more than an hour of sunlight in a day.

He looked around and found his pocket watch, cigarettes, and lighter on the dresser, but no sign of his clothes. The wardrobe had some suits and shirts he assumed were Doru's, a dressing gown, and hanging in the back, a child-sized dress.

It had to be Mihaela's. He hoped. Else Doru was entertaining young humans here and that would mean Walter would have to execute him.

He stopped and went back over his thoughts. Was he actually concerned for the vampire?

What was happening to him?

He swung around in response to a light rap on the door and put a hand over his mouth when his head and stomach reacted to his injudicious movements with pain and nausea.

Busy trying to quell the urge to vomit, he did not respond, but the door slowly swung open even without his invitation. Doru entered with what appeared to be Walter's clothes freshly pressed and hanging over his arm.

"I took the liberty of sending your things out to be laundered. I would not want your employer to think that your host did not know proper hospitality."

"I'm sure that my employer will be most impressed that the vampire who hosted me did not have me as a snack," Walter said, putting sarcasm between the two of them like a shield while he stood there, nauseously aware of his vulnerability.

He relented though, as years of habit drove him to nod politely when he held out a hand for his clothes. "Thank you for having them cleaned."

"So you will tell your employer of where you stayed?" Doru asked, draping the freshly pressed items over Walter's outstretched arm, his fingers brushing feather light over the young man's wrist as he drew away. "You did not tell him last night."

"Last night he would have objected, thinking that you had somehow mesmerized me into agreeing to something so daft." Walter put his hand under the cloth, surreptitiously rubbing the burning spot where the vampire's fingers had touched.

"And today he will think differently?" the vampire asked with an inquisitive, and somehow faintly amused, arch of an eyebrow.

"Today he will see that I have been returned unharmed – by you – and ready to go about my duties." Walter shifted his clothes from one arm to the other, inspecting them briefly to find that they were cleaned and pressed to even his rather meticulous standards.

Doru took the unspoken cue to nod and retreat toward the door. "I shall allow you to dress. After which it would honor me if you would accompany me for a meal."

Walter watched the door click shut behind his host and shook his head slightly in bewilderment. The wave of dizziness that accompanied that ill-considered gesture reminded him of just why he had stayed the night there to begin with.

A meal with a vampire? How would he explain _that_ to Arthur?  


•••

Perhaps it shouldn't have surprised Walter that they did not eat in Doru's home. The restaurant the vampire selected was, he said, within comfortable walking distance, even for the young man's injured condition.

"As you might imagine," the vampire explained as they strolled through the crisply cold evening, "I have no reason to keep human food in my home, but it is my understanding that this restaurant's offerings are of acceptable quality."

Walter nodded, then asked a question that he'd been too dazed to ask the night before, but which had niggled at him since waking. "Why do you have a human-style bedroom? You have no more use for it than a human larder."

"I do not?" Doru asked archly, glancing sidelong at the young human. "I cannot eat, and thus have no need of a kitchen, but I do, at times, have use of a bed and bedroom, even if not often."

Walter had been expecting some answer about keeping up appearances; Doru's response brought heat to his cheeks and unwelcome thoughts of what might have gone on in the bed he'd spent the night in.

"Ah." Doru broke into Walter's thoughts with a pleased exclamation and took his elbow to steer him toward a deep, shadowed doorway. "This is the restaurant. I presume you do not wish to be seen dining with a vampire, and this establishment is, of necessity, quite discrete."

_Of necessity?_ Walter permitted Doru to open the door and usher him inside, down a dimly lit hallway and into an even more dimly lit restaurant. He half expected to see picture show gangsters at the tables, but there were only ordinary men, sitting alone or in twos or threes at the tables and the bar. Many of them turned, almost in unison, when the door opened to admit the pair, but returned to their business as soon as the newcomers had been inspected and apparently passed.

"How do you know this place?" Walter asked, after a waiter seated them and left them with menus. "You said you have no use for human food."

"I do not always kill to feed." Doru made a show of examining the menu before putting it aside. "If you would humor me, the lamb always smells delicious, and that is as close to dining as I come."

"You come here to find people to feed from?" Walter's incredulity made his voice louder than he'd intended.

Doru frowned and made a quieting gesture with his hand. "Would you care to announce it to everyone here? I said I do not always kill. There are times when I cannot find a suitable criminal and must resort to seduction. In those instances, it seems to me that the least I can do is offer a meal in return for a meal."

"I will not be your meal and I will not be seduced." Walter dropped the menu and rose, only to stop when Doru's cool hand closed on his wrist. Even Walter, fast though he was, had not seen him move.

"That is not my intent, Angel. Please…." He released Walter and leaned back in his seat. "I wished only to have dinner with you before seeing you leave for Hellsing. Nothing more."

_Angel…._

Someone cleared his throat behind Walter, jerking his attention away from the vampire's dark eyes. The waiter had the good grace to look embarrassed before asking, "Do you two need a few more minutes?"

"No." Walter turned back to look at Doru, not breaking eye contact as he answered the waiter. "No. We're fine. I'll have the lamb."

"And a bottle of your best red wine," the vampire added, a glint in his eye as he smiled at Walter. "I do drink… wine."  


•••

"What sort of place is this?" Walter asked, after the waiter had departed and he had retaken his seat. "Is it a private club?"

"Of sorts. The people who come here all live invisibly. You. Me. Them." Doru languidly waved a hand toward the restaurant's other patrons. "You and I may do it for different reasons than they, but the end result is the same. To avoid persecution, we must all be invisible."

The young man scanned the other men, looking for the unifying factor that made them all invisible. The thing that stood out, was the guilty look that flinched across some faces every time the door opened. Guilty people waiting to be caught in the act. But of what?

"Is it your habit to make your explanations as unenlightening as possible?"

The vampire looked amused as he countered, "Is it your habit to expect that everything should be explained for you rather than discerning the truth yourself?"

"I would expect that asking about the nature of a restaurant would not be the sort of question I should spend time puzzling over," Walter responded, nettled. "It is not as though I am inquiring after the resting place of your coffin, or your true age and name."

The vampire looked past Walter with an amused smile and nodded when the waiter approached with a bottle and two glasses.

After they both had glasses of a fragrant red wine in front of them and the waiter had departed, Doru picked up the broken thread of their conversation as though they had not been interrupted. "Are those things you wish to puzzle out?"

Walter watched him lift his glass and contemplatively swirl the wine to observe it trailing down the inside of the glass on liquid legs. "You could just tell me."

Doru shook his head. "I should give more power to the Angel of Death? If your Lord sent you to punish me, the blood of the lamb on my door would not cause you to pass me by. You should not be surprised that I have no wish to die a true death yet.

"With time and trust come sharings of confidences. You do not trust me, thus I cannot trust you. I wish to someday be able to trust you and I am patient."

Walter wanted to argue, but the vampire's logic was, unfortunately, logical.

The uncomfortable moment was once again interrupted by the waiter, this time bearing Walter's order. This time, knowing that his presence was neither needed nor wanted, the man set the dish in front of the younger man and left the pair alone with only the standard offer of assistance should they need any.

The lamb _did_ smell delicious, and Walter could feel Doru's eyes on him while he cut off a bite and tasted it. Someone had had the clever idea of crusting it in a paste of garlic, mint, and what might have been a creamy cheese; it practically melted in his mouth.

The vampire leaned in, watching Walter's reaction as though to vicariously experience the meal. His nostrils flared slightly and the young man wondered whether it would be better or more frustrating to have a vampire's sense of smell in this instance – able to almost taste what he was obviously missing.

And to have that eternally out of reach.

He chewed slowly and, for the first time in recent memory, if ever, focused on little but the flavor of the meat and its seasonings. Sitting across from him was a being who would never again enjoy a well-cooked meal. Somehow that made him wish to savor it all the more – not out of a cruel desire to show Doru what he was missing, but because it would be callous not to appreciate what the vampire could not have.

He was watching his companion, not the door, and saw the vampire's expression change moments before the door slammed open and the quiet restaurant became someplace louder and more chaotic. Men who had been glancing at the door every time it opened left their tables, scattering in different directions, toward the lavatory and the kitchen.

"Alright you little perverts," bellowed a man in policeman's uniform, "playtime's over! Keep your arses in your seats and your hands where we can see 'em."

Several more officers filed in behind him and spread out, heading for the lavatory and the kitchen while the first man started canvassing the tables.

"It's nothing," the vampire assured Walter. "This happens from time to time – the police come and frighten the men here with threats of exposure, occasionally catch a couple in the act in the lavatory and arrest them for sodomy, elicit a bribe from the owner, and then leave. You have nothing to fear – after all, you are truly only here for a meal."

"Look at these two," the apparent leader said when he got to Walter and Doru's table. Walter looked up from his lamb and tilted his head inquiringly at the officer who asked, "Which one of you is the man? You both look like you want to be women with that girly hair."

"Can we help you?" Walter asked calmly. He hunted vampires; a bobby with delusions of power wasn't going to intimidate him.

The policeman tapped his pencil against the pad of paper in his hand. "You can tell me your names. We have to keep honest citizens safe from freaks like you."

Walter took a slow moment to wipe his mouth with his napkin before asking, "Freaks who have lamb for dinner, you mean?"

Maybe he shouldn't be taunting the man, but honestly, who did he think he was? He was trying to scare the bloody Angel of Death who was at table with a _vampire._ It was almost laughable.

His lips twitched with a barely restrained smirk when the man's face flushed red. "Don't talk to me like that, queer boy. I could run you in right now. How would you like that?"

"I think you would find yourself in more trouble than you would know how to handle," Walter responded. He could feel Doru watching them both, but spared little attention for the vampire. Walter had no trouble with authority, but this wasn't authority, it was just an excuse for bullying.

_"Are you threatening me?" _

Walter had to fight hard against his smirk as he watched the man's face move from red to something much closer to purple. The only reputation Walter had to worry about was one that wouldn't be tarnished by rumors that he'd been eating in an establishment like this, and while he wasn't especially eager to answer questions from Arthur about this incident, it certainly wasn't anything that would affect his duties.

Allowances would be made for one such as he.

"There is no problem."

Both Walter and the policeman turned their attention to Doru, who was lounging back in his seat, also looking amused.

"What?"

"There is. No. Problem," the vampire repeated, dark eyes locking with the other man's pale blue ones. "No one here has done anything wrong."

"There is no problem?" the man parroted, sounding confused. "No. No problem. We should… should we be going?"

"Yes. You should."

The policeman nodded slowly. "There is no problem." He frowned as though confused but turned away from their table. There is no problem here. Let's go."

One of the other policemen shook his head. "But it was your idea to come here in the first place."

"And now it's my idea to leave," he snapped. "There is no problem."

With a few more sharply barked orders, the officers reassembled and left, leaving shaken but relieved restaurant patrons, one entertained vampire, and a suspicious but strangely amused Angel of Death.

"It was very rude of him to attempt to interrupt your meal when you were so very clearly enjoying it," Doru remarked. "All because he believed you were doing something immoral."

"If I read his accusation properly, apparently my eating lamb was some form of homosexual activity," Walter said with a smile before having another bite of the meat. "I shall remember that the next time I am tempted to order lamb."

"Does that mean you will not be ordering lamb again?"

Walter stabbed the last bite and brought it to his mouth, chewing deliberately before shaking his head. "Why would I let a fool's opinions dictate what I eat?"

•••

Thomas Phelps had just finished a very confusing shift and was heading home, pulling his coat tight around his neck and wishing for a muffler when a little girl's voice addressed him from the shadows at the bottom of a basement flat's stairway.

"Mister policeman?"

His head was still muzzy from the aborted raid on the restaurant earlier in the evening, but he stopped to peer down into the darkness looking for the girl. "Is there something wrong?"

"There is no problem," the voice pronounced lightly.

Points of red winked in the otherwise lightless stairwell.

"There is no problem," Officer Phelps agreed dully, and walked down into a stygian blackness populated by a swarm of red eyes.

•••

"Tell me now about your mission," Arthur directed the young man standing in front of his desk. "You reported it was a success."

"The vampire was silenced, but there was another vampire that got to her first and then turned on me." He didn't rub his head, although it was throbbing again.

"Another vampire intervened."

_"Another?_ Intervened?" Arthur leaned forward, scrutinizing Walter carefully. For what, he couldn't say. "Why would a vampire do that?"

That was the burning question, wasn't it? "I don't know, sir. He saw me to a safe bed for the night and left me in peace."

It wasn't _too_ much of a lie if he didn't mention that the bed had been under the vampire's roof. Was it?  



	7. Climbing Up a Rope On Fire

"_Let me..."_

_A soft sigh._

_"Yes. Like that." _

_Another sigh, shared._

•••

As 1950 drew to a close, Walter ventured away from Hellsing manor more and more on personal business. That the personal business was an attempt to find the wolf in sheep's clothing, Mihaela, was not something he chose to share with Sir Hellsing.

The young hunter wandered London, past the riverside where he had spoken with the vampire girl, the tunnel where he had seen her hunt, the shopping district where the solicitous window dresser had taken Mihaela to shelter her. Somehow he thought that she would find him, but days went by, then weeks, and he did not see her anywhere.

He considered going to Doru's home to ask him where to find the girl, but something kept him from going. Some feeling that to do so was to invite things he either did not want, or at the very least, was not ready for. He was already indebted enough to the vampire; this he could do himself.

He thought long on whom the girl would hunt - people who would prey upon a seemingly helpless child. Those predators would hunt their prey where children congregated. He tried parks, cinemas, and one early evening just before Christmas, the zoo.

He paid little attention to the animals, caged and bound as they were. Death would be a kinder fate for these creatures than to be locked away from their natures and put on display for humans who could not appreciate them.

His eyes ranged the humans on display instead - harried mothers trying to wear their children out before bedtime, indulgent grandparents spending some precious time with the offspring of their offspring, occasional studious youths with sketchbooks or journals making spurious inferences from the unnatural behavior of natural creatures in artificial circumstances.

It was all so very pointless.

But there was always a chance that she would be there.

He strolled past the bears and meerkats and wildebeest that looked like oxen that just happened to be from the wilds of the Dark Continent. He saw no little girl who was not what she seemed.

Or maybe he saw many and didn't know it. Regardless, not the one he sought.

Until he came to the cages that held the wolves.

It seemed somehow fitting that he caught a glimpse of her white coat and fuzzy white hat first, taking him back to his earlier thoughts of Mihaela as a wolf in sheep's clothing.

The vampire girl's back was to him and she was deep in conversation with a young man who hung on her every word with almost hungry focus. She gestured toward the cages where the wolves watched them both with flat, predatory eyes. When the man asked her a question, she shook her head, said something, and then turned to unerringly point to Walter, giving him a beaming smile.

Walter's eyes narrowed at the flicker of disappointment across the stranger's face. It would seem that Mihaela's hunt would have been successful this evening, but at a guess, she had just told the man that she was with Walter.

Walter approached the two, his attention on the fool who had thought he'd found easy prey. Pudgy, pink, shiny faced, he looked like a man who had never quite gotten the hang of being a grown up. "Mihaela, have you found a new friend?"

"This is David, Uncle," Mihaela chirped in her child's voice. "He was telling me how much he likes the zoo and teaching children about the animals. He's a docent."

_Uncle?_ But Walter went along with the act. "Does he now?" He quirked an eyebrow at the now uncomfortable David. "How generous to share his time."

"Ah, yes... well..." David wiped his hands on his trousers and gave Walter a twitchy smile, already backing away from them. "Now that Mihaela's escort is here and I know that she is safe, I'll just be moving on. I wanted to go visit with Guy before I went home for the evening."

Mihaela beamed at him and waved. "Bye bye, David. It was very nice to meet you."

Walter watched the man make his retreat before looking down at Mihaela. _"'Bye bye?'"_

"I make a lovely innocent, don't you think?"

Her comment drew a frown from Walter. "You look like an innocent, but I know what you are."

"And you're looking for me," she said, turning away to climb up on the fence to better watch the wolves. The largest of them paced back and forth in the cage, its eyes never leaving her and its hackles bristling up. "Despite what you said to me the last time we met. You aren't here to execute me."

Walter noted that she was stating, not asking. "No. I'm not." He watched the wolf's pacing, glancing back and forth between the wolf that wore its nature for all to see, and the wolf that hid under the white wool of one of the flock. "Did Doru tell you what happened?"

"About the shelter and the other? Yes." The girl kept her attention on the wolf, which was pacing faster with each circuit. "What does that have to do with me?"

"Doru saved my life," Walter said, less than delighted to admit that he had needed saving. "After I threatened you and him."

Mihaela said nothing. The wolf stopped directly across from her. Over the noise of all the people, Walter couldn't trust his impression that the animal had whined.

"I was wrong," he forced himself to say because he felt it was the right thing to do. "What you did was not murder, but an execution." Which was what he always told himself about his own job.

The wolf was definitely whining now, and as Walter watched, it dropped its head and tail. He could see its pelt twitch, shivers running across its flanks. Glancing back to Mihaela, he couldn't read her expression, and her eyes were fixed on the animal.

"Will you accept my apology?"

"Doru is a kind host," she said instead of answering his question. "He always shows me such consideration when I spend a day in his home."

"Yes," Walter agreed, despite being a bit put off by her change of direction. "He was most considerate. Do you spend the day there often?"

"Often enough. His home is almost like my own."

The wolf gave a final shudder and lay down, rolling onto its side to show its belly. Mihaela smiled and dropped down from the fence. "I want to see the monkeys."

•••

Walter looked around the monkey house, but it was still the people that kept his attention. The animals weren't dangerous, they were locked away. The humans were roaming free.

And among those roaming humans, he spotted David, who had apparently found a new little girl to share his interest in the animals with. Walter let Mihaela lead him where she wanted, most of his attention on watching the man who had already set off alarms for him.

"Guy was born on Guy Fawkes Night," she was telling him, reading information about the gorilla off the placard in front of his cage, when Walter saw David unlocking a door marked "Employees Only" and leading the little girl through it. Her eyes were alight with excitement at the promise of something, probably seeing how the zoo worked behind the scenes.

Without a second thought, Walter left the vampire and strode to catch the door before it swung shut.

Bluntly, it smelled like shit back there, but how was that surprising in a zoo? Walter caught sight of another door swinging closed ahead of him and hurried to follow, not wanting to lose his prey.

He had almost entirely forgotten the vampire he'd left behind in the immediacy of his hunt. It wasn't his mandate to do this sort of thing, but it wasn't something he could turn a blind eye to, either. Hellsing was above the law. Hellsing made its own law.

And if he was sure he was right, that was good enough.

Opening the next door, he could hear the girl's voice asking a question and David responding in a tone that sounded much more self-assured than what Walter had heard from the man when they had been face-to-face. Apparently children didn't make him fidgety the way Walter had.

A corridor lined with doors stretched in front of him. The one he wanted was the one clicking shut as he picked up his pace, not wanting the cut-rate predator to have any more time with his prey.

"... a secret. You can never tell," Walter heard as he pushed the door open.

They were in a storeroom. There was no way David could try to pass this off as a private tour. Not of a storage closet behind a locked door with the man trying to convince a little girl that they had a secret.

He crossed the room in three long strides and caught David by the throat, pushing him backward against a wall to choke for air and claw impotently at Walter's arm. "What were you going to teach her about the animals here?"

Glancing over his shoulder for the little girl, Walter saw her looking at him in terrified disbelief, a scream hovering at the edges of her lips.

And behind her, standing in the doorway, Mihaela.

"Shh..." Mihaela came up behind the girl and put a hand on her shoulder. "Sleep."

The girl barely turned her head before her eyes fluttered closed and the tiny vampire caught her easily to lower her to the floor.

Walter was reminded that he was holding a human by the throat when the man lashed out with a desperate kick that caught him in the shin. In the shin? Walter sneered and slammed David's head back against the wall, leaving the man dazed and mostly held up by Walter's grip.

Mihaela appeared at his elbow, looking up at the two men. "What are you going to do to him?"

What was he going to do with this man who had systematically stalked little girls? What was he going to do with this man who didn't even merit being called human?

"I'm going to give him to you."

Mihaela's eyes glinted red, her smile revealing suddenly sharp teeth. "The girl will remember nothing," she promised.

"Take care of that now," Walter said, giving David's head another smack against the wall to keep him docile. "I'll take her while you..." He was no fainting flower. He was making a choice here, he was damn well going to own it. "...while you have your meal."

The vampire nodded and returned to the girl. Walter watched her kneel at the girl's side and brush her fine blonde hair away from her forehead. She leaned down and whispered something in the sleeping girl's ear, then scooped her up in her arms and stood. The easy way she held the girl brought home her inhuman nature better than the red that had dropped over her gaze or the gleam of sharp teeth.

She held the girl out to him, her attention already turning hungrily to the man Walter still held.

"You may go. He won't give me any trouble."

Walter released David to slide down the wall and held out his arms to take the girl from Mihaela. "Don't leave a mess."

"Walter." Mihaela's voice stopped him before he could leave the room. He turned to look at the tiny vampire where she stood over the man he had just given her as a meal. "I accept your apology."

•••

Arthur Hellsing sat with his breakfast and his morning paper and read the latest news that those in power saw fit to allow the general public to read. His mind was on other things than the paper.

Walter got out more, which was good, he hoped. The young man hadn't been as forthcoming about his activities as he used to be. Arthur rather hoped that his retainer had found a girl. Hell, he would live with it if the young man had found a boy. He just wanted Walter to have human contact and ties. Without that, he would devolve into something conscienceless, a monster like those he hunted with such satisfaction.

If this pattern of behavior continued, Arthur had decided he would have to have Walter shadowed. For his own good.

With his thoughts following this path, he barely skimmed the article filled with excited exclamations of shock and dismay about the zoo docent who had been found in the wolves' cage, mauled by the animals there.


	8. But If My Hands Are the Color of Blood

_"Say it."_

_A cry, a gasp, a shift of body on cloth..._

_"No."_

_"Say. It."_

_"I am not like you."_

_A chuckle, cold and hot, and a whimpered denial._

•••

Walter shifted the photographs across the borrowed desk and impassively scanned the graphic images.

As the coroner's report had so clinically described, the girl's body had been decapitated and exsanguinated. He suspected it was likely not in that order based on the wounds she bore. A quick scan further into the coroner's report confirmed his supposition.

A vampire did not leave neat little punctures like the Saturday matinees would have people believe. Those extended canines tore into a victim leaving long gouges for the blood to pour out of.

Gouges that this headless girl wore in graceless tears across her white, white body.

The town of Christchurch had not lost only one daughter this way. Shuffling those photos aside, he flipped open another file folder to confront similar images. A third folder carried a third cargo of second-hand mutilated flesh for Hellsing's man to examine.

After a time, he closed the folders and set them aside. He didn't need the photographs any longer, the images were emblazoned in his mind, and he was certain that Christchurch did indeed have a vampire problem.

•••

Christchurch wasn't a big city, but it was a populous enough town that Walter had far too many places to look. The one thing he had to go on was that all three girls were students at the same school. Not that that was a huge coincidence, given the small number of schools in the town, but it was someplace to start.

The coroner's reports, thorough as they were, made it clear that the girls had something else in common. Unfortunately, it wasn't something Walter would be able to recognize on sight.

How had the vampire known they were virgins?

He sorted through file folders. This time they contained photos of the living. Each folder contained a file on the girls' parents. Under those folders was another stack containing records for each of the girls' teachers.

If Walter could determine just how the vampire was selecting its victims, he could exterminate it like the vermin it was.

The parents weren't particularly helpful. They spoke to the young stranger with the (completely genuine) police credentials, but none of them wanted to discuss their daughters' sex lives with someone who hardly looked old enough to be having sex himself.

Walter felt the pressure of time weighing heavily on his shoulders. He had to find this vampire before it killed again, or worse, started creating ghouls. Those grieving families had no idea that death was a mercy compared to what could have happened. Newly created vampires often returned home, first. The contagion could spread like wildfire.

Decapitation had been doing the girls and the town a favor.

Why did that thought raise alarms? Walter tried to pursue its logic, but could find no explanation for why something felt wrong with that idea.

So, the young hunter pushed onward, asking questions during the day, prowling the town's streets at night, grudgingly snatching a couple of hours of sleep in the early morning before rising to begin again.

On the third day, news came that two more girls had disappeared.

That news brought him both rage and a sense of failure. He'd been there for three days. He was supposed to be the great vampire hunter – the best of his generation – and he'd made no progress at all and two more girls were going to pay for his failings.

•••

The break came accidentally. There was no sense of accomplishment to stumbling over the answer to the mystery.

With the school closed and parents keeping their children inside out of fear of the predator in their midst, it was a darkening Friday afternoon when Walter strode up the front walk to the school nurse's home. With her position of trust for the students, Matilda Fenton might know more about the missing girls than some of the parents.

Blind luck, then, that he heard a muffled sound from the back of the house. It could have been a cat, a creaking hinge, the cry of a bird, but the sound set Walter's hackles rising.

His life depended on instinct. Not that he always listened to it, but he always _heard_ its clamor. Now instinct told him that the cry was nothing but what he thought it was, wanted it to be. The cry was an opportunity to save at least one life before it was too late. A slim one, but one he had to take.

He followed the sound around to the back of the house, a sweeping glance taking in neat hedges, a well-tended stone wall, a tidy patch of bare earth that was probably a vegetable garden in the warm months, and a crack of blackness against the house's stone foundation that had to be a coal chute that was ajar just a few inches. Ajar enough to let the next muffled shriek reach his ears and pull him onward, searching for a way down.

There were dirt-clouded windows along the base of the house's foundations. All Walter could tell, crouching down to peer into first one, then scuttling to the next, and the next after that, was that there was light on behind one of them, shadows moving behind the ingrained dirt.

Another cry, muffled, but still with a note of pain and protest.

Walter sprang up, running around to the back door and a flicker of silver from his fingers cutting the knob and lock out of the wood without pausing. Kitchen. Hallway. Sitting room visible down the hall. Doors. Stairs up. Damn. Damn. _Damn!_

He pulled open the closest door and grimaced. No. A pantry wasn't going to help. Next was a WC. Opening the next cast light down wooden stairs that promised to creak the moment he set foot on them. Shit.

He gathered himself and jumped, feet barely touching a step mid-way down the stairs, but enough for the wood to groan under the weight.

To the left was another closed door with a crack of light showing from underneath. In three swift steps, he had crossed the distance from stair bottom to the door, an invisible flick of wire cutting it off its hinges to fall forward into the room under a hard kick.

Everything moved in the stutter stops of life illuminated by a strobe light.

Red. Vibrant, screaming, blood red. On the walls. On the floors. Painting the room's bare lightbulb to add the stink of cooking blood to the hot copper scent already thick in the air.

A man, mouth painted in blood. A girl, gagged and still and hanging by her arms in the center of the room, a figure shrinking back against the wall, a still life of another girl, this one hung by her feet over a bucket, droplets of blood dangling from her limp fingertips waiting for gravity to pull them free.

And silver, flickering out to catch the man, whirling him as he reached for something, caressing his body before drawing tight and spinning arms, legs, and head in different directions in the small room, adding a fresh, hot spray of blood to the abattoir-stench already in the air.

The Angel of Death's attention turned to the other moving figure in this room when a woman's voice screamed, _"Anthony!"_ Wire flashed inches from her, sent to dispatch the accomplice with the master when Walter recognized Matilda Fenton behind the mask of blood and anguish. The instant of shock let him register one other thing - the spray of blood had been hot. Not cold. Not even warm with borrowed heat as a vampire's blood might be after just feeding, but _hot._

"Human," he breathed, coming into the room. His muscles were tense, ready for the woman to attack him, but she had dropped to her knees and crawled to where the man's head had rolled, picking it up to cradle against her breast.

"Anthony. Anthony. Oh, God..." she moaned to the glassy-eyed face while Walter checked the pulse of the girl hanging by her arms. She was still warm as life, but her heart did not beat, most of her blood lost down the front of her body from the brutal gashes in her throat.

"Damn," he muttered in a mix of anger and frustrated resignation. Vampire victims were never survivors anyway, but this girl had been brutalized by a human man.

Or a man and a woman. He glared down at the sobbing woman.

"What the Hell were you doing?" he snarled, kicking the head out of her hands, sending a set of metal fangs flying from its slack mouth._ "Why?"_

"Anthony!" The woman wailed and tried to snatch at the head, crawling after it as though the center of the universe revolved around that piece of the man she had clearly loved.

Human. She was human, too.

Walter stood over her with hands clenched into fists and for a moment, considered ending her life then and there. He could do it. He could get away with it. He was judge, jury, and executioner for vampires; he would be forgiven if he stretched it just a little farther to eliminate this murderer. He'd done as much before during the war and even in handing that child molester over to Mihaela.

His fingers opened and closed. Silver dropped from them in a flicker of leashed death, then disappeared with another twitch of his digits.

No. Killing her would be too easy. He backed away from Matilda and the temptation to kill her, leaving her with her agonized cries for the man who had obviously been named Anthony.

As he stepped away from a deadly sin he had once told Mihaela he was not subject to, Walter did not see the slither of shadow that crept up the wall and out through the coal chute's cracked door.

•••

Matilda sat alone in her cramped isolation cell. The officers had already come and gone, voicing their disgust, reviling her, and in one case, spitting through the bars on her shoe.

What did it matter? Anthony was gone. That horrid, _horrible_ man with the rings on his fingers and death on his face had killed him and taken away everything she lived for.

She rocked back and forth on the hard cot, dried tears leaving taut tracks across her cheeks. It was over.

She couldn't even tell the authorities that what they had done had been all for the Master. Those words stopped on the tip of her tongue and refused to go any farther.

_You are not worthy to speak of him._

She was… unworthy to speak of him.

_All the good is gone from the world._

All the good was gone from the world with her love.

_There is nothing left._

She had nothing. Not her love, not the Master, not her home, not her career, not her friends. She had nothing left.

_There is a way out._

The agonized woman looked down at the bunk she was sitting on and suddenly jerked up like a puppet with someone manning its strings. There was a way out.

First one centipede, then a tide of them skittered over her shoes while Matilda escorted herself out of the world with a rope made of torn bedsheet tied tightly around her neck. It had been knotted so that even when her nerve gave out, she was unable to release the garrote to scream at the creatures. Then oxygen deprivation bore her away from the horror and down to a peaceful blackness she did not deserve.

By the time a guard found her body on the next welfare check, the cell was populated by only the most natural of shadows and one corpse, its face frozen in a rictus of horror.

•••

Arthur Hellsing hung up the phone and gave his complete attention to the man standing in front of his desk.

"His mission is complete and he is on his way back to Hellsing. You understand your duties, Bernadette?"

Gérard Bernadette barely contained his eyeroll. _"Oui,_ Sir Hellsing." His accent was thick, but not incomprehensible. "You want us to follow your man. You want me to tell you what he does. You want us not to get caught. It is very simple, _non?"_

Stupid Englishman. He was hiring professionals, what did he expect?

"It is not so simple," Arthur said, leaning forward intently. "He is a trained hunter. He is accustomed to being paranoid to stay alive. I have hired you and your men because I cannot set any familiar faces to follow him."

He sighed and pulled a cigar from the humidor before leaning back in a good impersonation of a relaxed lounge. "He is the best. Be discrete or you may find yourself dead if he deems you a threat." Dead in many small pieces.


	9. Serving Time in a Domestic Graveyard

_"This is wrong..."_

_"Why?"_

_A pause, a gasped panting breath._

"Why?"

_"Because nothing that feels like this can be right..."_

_A laugh, soft and mocking, to barely cover the first moan._

•••

A month passed after the Christchurch incident and Walter brooded over where he'd gone wrong. Sir Arthur had even rubbed salt in the wound by complimenting Walter on his work there.

Walter dragged on his cigarette and leaned over the gun barrel he was polishing on the grinder, grunting to himself in disgust at the thought of the compliment. Blind luck shouldn't be complimented any more than having completely misread the situation should be. Some vampire expert he was, if he could mistake man's inhumanity to man for the attack of a vampire.

The young butler was angry with himself for the fact that he had spent the past month brooding, but he couldn't seem to help it. He loathed failure, and to his mind, the last two girls' deaths in Christchurch had been his failure.

In his annoyance, he pressed a little too hard and sparks spat up from the grinder.

_"Shit."_ That was probably enough of that for the night.

"You shouldn't work all the time."

Walter's head snapped up, back straightening reflexively in response to Arthur Hellsing's voice. He took the cigarette from his mouth and turned around to face his master. "I was just thinking the same thing."

Arthur lounged in the door to Walter's workshop, unlit cigarillo in one hand and an envelope in the other. "You couldn't have proved it to me. You haven't taken any kind of time for yourself in weeks."

Time for himself? Walter shook his head at Arthur. "I _am_ taking time for myself right now. This is a hobby." He knew he sounded defensive and he hated it.

"This?" Arthur's brow arched with affected incredulity as he took in the workshop. Walter had set it up for himself when the lull after the war had left the young man with more time than he was accustomed to having on his hands. The walls were lined with tools, example weapons, and bookshelves with metallurgical, historical, and weapons references. "When you work for Hellsing, weapons work is anything but a hobby."

Walter didn't sigh. He didn't make faces. He didn't protest further. He stubbed out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray and stood at something that at least looked like calm attention while he waited for Arthur to make his point.

Hellsing's leader knew better than to try to outwait his young servant. Walter was hardly out of his teens, but he had the patience of a much older man.

He held the envelope out. "Go out. That's an order."

The envelope contained an invitation.

_Matthews and Sons welcome you to the grand opening of the Lyceum Ballroom. Join us for an evening of music, dance, and for the gala ballroom opening, fine dining. Black tie._

Walter looked up from the calligraphed card to meet Arthur's amused gaze. "Sir, that's tonight. I don't have time to find an escort."

The older man waved a hand negligently. "I can hire you one, or you can go on your own. I'm certain that you'll have no trouble finding dance partners."

Dancing. Arthur wanted him to go out_dancing._ Walter was a hair's breadth away from rolling his eyes at his employer's complete lack of subtlety.

"Right. Right. I'll go on my own then. There's no need to waste money on an escort." Black tie. Brilliant. Many men might be bothered by that formality, but it was practically second nature for Hellsing's butler.

"I'll just go get ready."

•••

The Lyceum ballroom, formerly the Lyceum Theater, was ready for its reintroduction to the world in its new form. Men in tuxedos provided a sea of black to highlight women in jewel-colored gowns in the grand ballroom. Lights shone, the dance floor was the center of attention, the band played "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes" as Walter threaded his way through the press, taking a glass of champagne from a waiter circulating among the guests.

This was not where the young man wished to be, but arguing it with Arthur had not been an option.

He found a quiet nook away from the worst of the crowd and pulled his cigarette case out of his waistcoat pocket, juggling champagne glass, case, and cigarette to put the cigarette between his lips and tuck the case away.

A pale hand held a lighter out for him, and Walter's eyes followed the long line of the arm attached to that hand up to a familiar face partly hidden behind red lenses.

"Doru." He drew on his cigarette until the tobacco caught, buying himself a second in which to adjust to the vampire's presence and hide the inevitable tension his company brought. "Hunting?"

The tall man shook his head, the lighter disappearing almost magically from his hand as he swept it back toward the gathering. "I am here for the gala. Are you? Hunting that is."

Walter tried not to stare at the striking figure Doru cut in his crisp black and white, contrasted by his usual red glasses. "No. Sir Hellsing thought I was working too much. It was his idea."

Doru smiled almost as though he was aware of Walter's effort. "Do you dance?"

"I had teachers in almost everything proper to the gentry, or in my case, proper for one who must tend to the gentry. I can dance, I just have no real cause to." Nor any interest in a "proper" dance partner.

"How does the Angel of Death come to tend to the gentry when he isn't bringing terror to the undead world?" Doru asked, leaning against the wall near Walter. It looked casual, but Walter could see that it gave the vampire a good view of the majority of the ballroom.

"That's a story for another time," the young man said with a dismissive shake of his head even as part of his mind shouted, _Another time? Are you an idiot?_

Another smile that made Walter feel as transparent as glass. "Another time, then. Perhaps over lamb."

Walter didn't cough on the smoke already in his lungs, but he did freeze for just a moment before exhaling, hoping against hope that the sudden jump in his pulse would go unnoticed in by the vampire in the midst of the party's noise.

"Perhaps." His mind continued its directions: _Stop being the target. Stop letting him keep you off guard. Stop staring!_

Right. He could do that. He turned his gaze out to the crowd that had gathered. "Did you come here to dance, then?"

Doru spread his hands in a graceful gesture that made a lie of Walter's resolution and drew the young man's attention down to the man's long, bare fingers. His fingernails gleamed in the lights, trimmed and perfectly tended, and were hardly what Walter would think of as "rending claws." He tried to let that thought serve as a reminder that vampires could hide their natures; just because Doru had done him no harm before was no guarantee about tonight or the future.

"I came for the same reason I was at the gallery where we first met. Humans can be very interesting to watch from the outside. Don't you think so?" Doru tipped his head down to Walter, smiling as though they shared a secret.

"I wouldn't know." Walter felt the need to point this out. "I'm_ human."_

Doru hmmed. With those tinted lenses, it was difficult to tell where exactly the vampire's attention was at any given time. Unless, Walter noted to himself, it was focused strongly on him. At those moments, Walter could almost feel the touch of his gaze.

Was the vampire bewitching him? Entrancing him? He would notice, wouldn't he? Like he had noticed when he met Mihaela? Neither of them had tried to make him do or think anything after Mihaela's first attempt and his warning to her.

Wait... hadn't he just resolved not to let Doru put him off his guard?

_Damn._

He dragged on his cigarette to cover his discomfiture and breathed out a blue-white cloud of smoke. "What do you see here? You had such an interesting story to tell about that man at the gallery. Tell me about the people here."

The vampire looked away from the gathering to smile at Walter. "As you wish." He tipped his head toward a cluster of people gathered around one portly gentleman who was holding court among his friends, telling some story that had the group laughing with the sort of titillation that is the hallmark of an off-color story. Even a bespoke suit couldn't hide the bulge of too much indulgence that rendered the fifty-something year old man the figure of a woman about to deliver twins. Neither that or his shining bald head did anything to reduce the man's joviality.

"That man," Doru commented, "has been carrying on a long-term affair with his wife's personal maid. They have a son, who is old enough to be employed as his father's gardener, never knowing that he is a bastard, nor that his father will never recognize his existence."

He barely paused, possibly scanning the crowd behind his lenses. "Countess Moura Budberg," he nodded toward the straight-backed, gray-haired woman in a gleaming emerald gown who was deep in a more somber conversation with another, frumpier woman, "is under suspicion for her possible communist connections. Her connections being a few friends she has who are communists and ties to Russia." The vampire's expression gave nothing away. "She is not a communist, quite enjoying both capitalism and nobility, but guilt by association makes no distinctions in such things.

"See over there," he lifted his chin to almost point toward a humorless-looking man in a civil servant's suit who was not quite glowering at the countess. "That man is Howard Koch. He's been determined to see her wear the communist label ever since she declined his advances."

"How do you know these things?" Walter asked, interested despite himself. "You can't know all that just from looking at them. Or are you just making up stories like the doll man again?"

"You of all people should be in a position to know how the nobility and gentry gossip," Doru said in a tone that had Walter half expecting the vampire to "tsk" at him. "All it takes is good hearing."

Walter didn't think that Doru had spent a day in his life as a servant and found that the reproof made him bristle.

Before he could say something, the vampire went on. "But I will tell you one more story about someone here and then you can tell me which of the three is false and by default, which two are true."

He made a show of scanning the crowd. "No. Not that one. Not her. How about..." His gaze fell on Walter. "...you?" He smiled, and for the first time, Walter thought he caught an unnaturally sharp gleam to the vampire's teeth.

"You wear that tuxedo as comfortably as though born to it. You look completely at home among all these people, except for your hair."

Walter stopped himself from straightening his ponytail and wondered how it was that the man could seem to loom without having moved an inch.

"But your hair says that you aren't at home among them. No more than the shepherd is truly at home among the sheep. You hold yourself apart from the flock. You almost blend in, but you make yourself different without thinking about it. You watch over them. But you aren't one of them."

Doru had that gleaming smile as he spoke, sharp white teeth flashing as he leaned closer to Walter and murmured, "Tell me, Angel of Death, do you really think that behind that human mask you wear, that you're just like them? With all you've seen and done? With all you keep hidden from _everyone?"_

•••

"Tell me again." Arthur tapped his fingers on his desk and frowned, at the oblivious mercenary on the other end of the telephone line, at Walter, at himself for setting people to follow his most trusted servant.

"He went to the ballroom," Gérard repeated with forced patience. "He went. He smoked. He drank champagne. He talked to one man and then he left. Alone. He walked along the river for a few hours. Smoked all of a pack of cigarettes."

He added as an almost proud aside, "He smokes like a Frenchman. He walked. He smoked. He came back to the ballroom and picked up the car from the valet, and he went back to Hellsing. We did not lose him the entire time."

"Did you overhear any of his conversation with the man?"

_"Non,"_ Gérard said almost regretfully. "They stood apart from the crowd. There was no way to get close without being obvious, but it seemed as though they knew each other and whatever they talked about looked to be the reason why your Walter left."

Arthur sighed and used his thumb and index finger to rub his temples. "Did they seem... close?"

_"Non,_ not _close_ close." Bernadette said. "But from the way they were looking at each other, they seemed like they could be."

Hellsing's leader closed his eyes and nodded even though other man couldn't see the gesture. "Right. Just continue with your current orders. Observe but don't interfere. I'll inform you if he has any other trips away from the manor scheduled. If you see the man again, follow him and find out whatever you can."

He hung up without waiting to hear Bernadette's agreement and slouched back in his chair. Well, he'd told himself he could tolerate Walter finding a male companion, if that was how it worked out. Despite that, he couldn't help feeling that something was wrong with it.


	10. A Soul to Dig the Hole Much Deeper

_"There?"_

_A gasp, a moan, the sound of tearing cloth._

_A chuckle._

_"There."_

•••

Black hair spread out over Walter's bare thighs, sliding across his skin like skeins of fine midnight silk with every slow movement of Doru's head.

_Yes, yes, please more, yes._ A stream of consciousness consisting of nothing but the words that might urge the man in his bed to bring him out of this delicious agony and into–

•

Walter's eyes opened, and for a moment, so real had the dream been, he had to lift his head and look down the line of his body in his empty bed. There was no vampire. He was still covered under the heavy eiderdown the season demanded.

He dropped his head back on his pillow and squeezed his eyes closed

"No," he groaned to himself. Not this way.

Annoyed by his weakness even in dreams, he threw the eiderdown aside to get out of bed and go for a cold shower.

Once the bathroom door closed behind him and the sounds of running water started, the shadows around the young man's bed writhed briefly, then stilled.

•••

Thoughts of his waking were firmly behind him as Walter left his room and went about his day. There was staff to supervise, contracts to read, incident reports to review. What a man did in his dreams had nothing to do with Hellsing's day-to-day realities.

After those things were dealt with, though, he was too restless to stay in the manor. He had tried settling in with his latest weapon project, and given up in irritation when the meditative repetition of grinding and shaping had given his mind too much opportunity to wander to black hair, white skin, and red lips. The words in the latest book he had picked up had turned into nothing but ants marching across the page, lacking any meaning. Sleep was out of the question; he knew that as soon as his head touched the pillow, the memory of the dream would return as vivid dreams were wont to do.

Instead, he took one of Hellsing's cars and, with a brief message to the duty commander, drove into London.

At first he drove randomly, with no particular destination in mind with the exception that he avoided Doru's neighborhood entirely. He did not want to see the vampire. Not now. Not when he felt certain that the man would read the dream right off his flushed face.

Eventually, he stopped and parked near Hyde Park, getting out to walk in the chill air, travelling from pool of lamplight to pool of lamplight with his hands tucked in his pockets and a cigarette dangling from his lip.

He had no destination in mind, simply following the paths where they led him. In a park of hundreds of acres, there were many paths to follow and much to see, even after dark.

Maybe this was a bad idea, too, Walter began to think as he lit his next cigarette off the stub of the last. What was wrong with him that even thinking of Doru seemed to be driving him to chain smoke?

He walked along paths that were well-lit and others that were shrouded in gloom. He ignored sights people would travel from across the world to see; strolled unseeing past fountains, statues, and memorials.

His thoughts were elsewhere, and the only consolation he had was that he wasn't under Hellsing's roof while he thought them.

"Penny for your thoughts, Angel of Death," chimed a familiar child's voice from the darkness.

Walter pulled himself from his musings and looked around, heart leaping to a faster pace, adrenaline flooding his system to wake his senses. A pale shape caught his attention, and he realized that he was seeing Mihaela peering out of the small dark arch that led into the sheltered interior of the park's "Upside-down Tree."

She emerged from the natural cave created by the branches that drooped to the ground, a tiny, deceptively harmless-looking figure in her fluffy hat and the winter white suit and coat she seemed to favor.

"You must be thinking," she continued as she glided toward him, "to be out here chain smoking. You're surely not sightseeing."

"Looking for someone to eat?" he countered, covering any defensiveness he might have felt with aggression. "Looking for the hunters? This doesn't seem like your kind of hunting ground."

The little vampire stopped a few feet away and offered him a winsome smile that looked almost right and mostly wrong – a glint of kitten fang, a flash of red to her eyes. "Perhaps I just like it here."

_Right,_ Walter thought to himself. _And I'm just out to get some air. _

"Offer a lady a cigarette," Mihaela chided. "Do you want to come and sit in the tree with me? There's no body under there."

Nobody. No body. No. Body.

She wasn't pushing the little girl act as much as usual tonight.

"No. Thank you," he murmured out of polite habit as he held his cigarette case out for her to take one and then lit her cigarette. "Just because I'll share a fag with you doesn't mean I'm in the mood to get cozy."

Mihaela took a drag off her cigarette and shrugged. "And what are you in the mood for, Angel?"

"I wish you and Doru would stop calling me that." He knew he sounded peevish, but it was worse than disconcerting to have a pair of vampires calling him pet names. "That isn't my name."

"But it is what you are called," Mihaela pointed out. She gestured toward the path he'd been following and began walking as though she expected him to join him for a stroll. She glanced over her shoulder to see if he was following and quirked an eyebrow. "Coming?"

"Who gave you that name?" she asked after he caught up and they walked together. "Don't tell me you're so prideful as to give yourself the nom de guerre of Angel of Death." She smirked sidelong at him. "Although I do remember your telling me that pride was your sin."

"The commander of Hellsing's troops, if you must know." He was accustomed to the sobriquet now, but it was also true that when it had been bestowed on him when he had been just eleven years old, it had made him proud indeed.

"I wasn't born in service to Hellsing, you know. I wasn't even born in England." He shoved his hands in his pockets while they walked, remembering his life before the war. "My family is Dutch. From Rotterdam. When…." He stopped. There were things he didn't want to talk about. Everyone had lost family, friends, or acquaintances in the war. His losses were nothing unique.

"My family had old ties to the van Helsing family. We had our own traditions, our own history, our country to serve. When Queen Wilhelmina came to England during the war, I came with her household. It was a favor of sorts from the royal house to my family." Or at least to his family's memory.

"It was decided that I'd do better with Hellsing. I could continue the family traditions that way instead of hanging about fetching tea and trying not to get underfoot with the Dutch government in exile."

He wasn't watching Mihaela as he spoke. Much. He couldn't relax with a vampire so close, no matter how harmless she appeared.

"I'm coming to the point. I promise." He didn't think much about those days and he'd never spoken of them to anyone. Everyone at Hellsing either already knew or could hear the story from someone else.

"When I came to Hellsing, the commander of the troops didn't want to take it on _anyone's_ word that this Dutch boy had anything useful to contribute." Walter grimaced, remembering the arguments that had gone on as though he hadn't been right there to hear them. Maybe they'd just expected that he couldn't speak English. "I suppose I can't blame him." He glanced over at Mihaela. "After all, I didn't really look any more dangerous than you do."

"But you weren't any less harmless than I am, were you?" the girl prompted, eyes glinting red at him as they passed under a light post.

"No. I wasn't." Walter thought of the scrawny child he'd been and couldn't fault the commander for his doubts. "Sir Hellsing… his family had always kept in touch with my family – professional interest – so he'd heard about me. He made Commander Patterson take me out on a search and destroy mission."

And hadn't that gone interestingly? With the commander determined to keep the boy out of the fray despite his leader's orders and a young Walter equally determined to show that his family's combination of breeding and training had yielded a fearsome fighter.

"I broke away from the blockade that they were setting up around the infected village and ran straight in. By the time they caught up to me, I'd cleaned out the infestation." He pulled out a fresh cigarette and lit it off the butt of his last one.

"It really wasn't that impressive, if you ask me. They were just ghouls. We found out later that the vampire that had created them had made a good dozen to keep Hellsing distracted while he made his escape. But you've seen my work with a single vampire. Now imagine that kind of mess with so many ghouls, and I was sloppier in those days."

He shook his head, remembering Patterson's white-faced appraisal of the aftermath – the blood-sodden boy standing untouched in the middle of the carnage. "He took one look at me and said, 'You're not human, you're the fucking Angel of Death.'" He shrugged. "It stuck."

He could hear echoes of it in what Doru said to him at the Lyceum Ballroom's gala. _Tell me, Angel of Death, do you really think that behind that human mask you wear, that you're just like them?_

Mihaela laughed delightedly. "That's wonderful. It's such a treat to see grown men shocked by what can be done by someone they've dismissed as small and weak. I wish I could have been there to see it."

Walter just shook his head. Had it really been so clear to others so long ago? It was one thing to have Doru – a vampire and thus inherently untrustworthy – question his humanity, but Walter had been just a child when Patterson had made the same call.

Was he really just a monster in his own right?

"Come now," Mihaela persisted, "why so glum? That's a wonderful story."

"I'm not glum." Right, so it was a bit of a lie. "It's the past anyway. The war ended. I stayed here. I'm an English citizen now. As good a John Bull as any." He remembered his cigarette and took a drag. Ah, sweet smoke. If he kept chain smoking like this, he'd end up sounding as gravelly as a cinema gangster.

"My turn. You know something new about me; I want to know something about you." He fixed the little vampire with a hard look. "Who made you? Why are you in England? Or why do I never see you and Doru together? Did you two have a falling out? Or even how old are you really?"

Instead of being bothered by the questions, Mihaela beamed up at him. "How sweet. You want to know more about me? Does that mean we're going to be friends after all?"

Walter stopped on the path and stared down at her. "Friends? How can we ever be friends? You prey on humans."

"And _you_ prey on vampires," Mihaela retorted, hands on her little girl hips. "But neither of us has any reason to prey on each other. We don't fit each other's particular prey. What do we care what happens to the trash of either species? Why shouldn't we be friends?"

She huffed out an exasperated breath. "I am two hundred eight years old. My sire died at the hands of Catholic monster hunters in the last century. I came to England because I wanted to see what changes this new century had made since I was last here, and you don't see Doru and me together because we lead separate lives. How long can you know someone before they just grow boring? So we see each other when we have new stories to tell instead of the same old ones that will leave us both impatient with the other's company."

Her hard expression softened into another of her too-mature smiles in the face of Walter's mute surprise. "There. I've answered your questions. Are you happy now?"

She held up an admonitory finger when Walter opened his mouth. "Any more questions come with a price. Quid pro quo, Angel."

•••

Arthur sat in his office and poured himself a measure of whiskey, sitting and staring at the amber liquid while he marshaled his thoughts. Bernadette had reported seeing Walter with a girl who matched the description of the vampire Walter had detailed before. Sharing a cigarette with her had been rather a giveaway that she was no child. It was a pity that the mercenary could give no other details. The situation had demanded that the men observe Walter from a distance, and binoculars did not afford an opportunity for eavesdropping.

To say that it troubled Arthur was an understatement. He worried that Walter was forgetting himself, lulled by her seeming fragility.

Perhaps he had been wrong to ever have a policy that not all vampires should be killed. Perhaps it had just been a reaction to Abraham's adamancy that they should be wiped from the face of the Earth.

Perhaps he should have found a different way to rebel against his father. Richard had done it by going away to school and then becoming a businessman with little dealings with Hellsing.

Which, of course, was why Arthur was on his own….

A knock at the door broke him from his introspection. "Enter."

"Sir." Walter slipped into Arthur's office and closed the door. "I wanted to see if you needed anything before I retire for the night."

"Yes." Arthur tapped a finger on his desk and nodded. "Come here. Tell me about your evening out."

Was that a flicker of something on the young retainer's face before he approached Arthur's desk and took the seat the man indicated?

"I was going to give you a written report in the morning," Walter said, sitting ramrod straight in the chair. "I thought it would merit it, since I had another encounter with the vampire Mihaela tonight in Hyde Park."

That admission did more to allay Arthur's fears than anything else. That Walter would still volunteer such information relieved him more than he could tell the man.

"Tell me everything about it," he said, leaning forward eagerly.

Later, he would wonder why he worried anyway. Walter had always been completely trustworthy.

But after all, it wasn't Walter he didn't trust; it was the vampires that seemed to be drawn to him of late.


	11. Because I Can't Not

_"You're ready."_

_"No."_

_A soft, wet sound and a whimper._

_"You keep saying that, but you're still here."_

•••

Christian Wallace.

Walter looked at the name heading the neatly typed form and scanned down to the passport photo that went with the name. Christian Wallace, in his tiny grayscale representation, was a man whose face matched the 1925 birth year listed on the form. He was perhaps a little foxy-faced with his sharp features and clever eyes, but Walter thought that he could see the wit that had to have earned the man his position.

Hellsing's most trusted retainer had read dozens if not hundreds of such profiles, but never one quite like this one. Christian Wallace was Richard Hellsing's personal assistant, and Walter was reading this dossier in preparation for Richard's homecoming. He skimmed the information again, turning pages and flipping back and forth between the passport photo and other photos deeper inside the file.

Right. He glanced up at the clock on the wall – 12:59 p.m. Christian was due at 1:00. Walter wondered if the man would be prompt or not. He did hate the inconsideration of lateness.

The clock ticked over to 1:00 and a light rap sounded on Walter's office door.

He pulled open a drawer and put the two files away before calling, "Come in."

The door opened and Walter's first thought was that Christian needed ironing lessons.

Not auspicious, perhaps, but despite his crisply pressed trousers and the almost foppish white carnation boutonniere in his lapel, the crease in the man's collar was going to drive the fastidious butler mad with the urge to smooth it out soon enough.

He rose from his seat and offered the newcomer a smile. Christian was a few inches shorter than he was, but that wasn't surprising; there were few people who could match Walter's 6'5" height. Doru was one of the few people Walter had met in his life who was even taller.

Walter smiled and pushed thoughts of Doru away. This was hardly the time.

"Mr. Wallace," he held out his hand. "Walter Dornez. Welcome to Hellsing."

With a smile that smoothed out some of the sharpness of his features, Christian Wallace took Walter's hand in a firm grip. "Christian, please. We both answer to Hellsings. I think we can afford a little informality between us."

Walter nodded before releasing the man's hand and gesturing to a guest chair in front of his desk. "Christian it is, then, but only if you call me Walter."

The two men sat and Walter tapped a notepad on his desk. "I have a list of potential office spaces for Mr. Hellsing, as well as some city homes that may be acceptable to him. I understand that he is very particular."

Particular enough to have sent his assistant ahead of him to begin scouting suitable locations rather than taking his brother's offer of placement. Richard would be staying at Hellsing for a week or three while he personally approved his office and housing, but he had demanded that Christian cull through Hellsing's offerings before he even considered any suggestions.

Walter chose to be charitable and consider that it was because Richard had been travelling the world for years for business, hardly staying in one place more than a few months before moving on as his growing investment company demanded. This time, the elder Hellsing brother was supposed to be back in England to stay. Shouldn't it be his right to be particular about where he settled down?

"You could say that," Christian agreed with a grin. "Mr. Hellsing wants things done exactly as he wants them, whether he tells you what he wants or not."

He held up a warning hand. "And I can't criticize. After all, his business is very successful because of his particularities. They just keep me very busy."

"I'm sure they do," Walter agreed, warming to the slightly irreverent respect the man seemed to have for his employer. "Perhaps that's something Hellsings have in common. I have been in Sir Hellsing's service for ten years now, and I have grown into anticipating his wants."

"Ten years?" Christian tipped his head at Walter, looking dubious. "You're having me on. You're younger than I am."

"By four years," Walter agreed with the start of a cocky grin of his own. "But the fact remains that I have been Hellsing's retainer since 1941."

"Incredible." The other man shook his head and made little effort to hide his appraisal of Walter. "I shouldn't expect you – no offense intended – to be in a position of such responsibility. Most people who enter service so young don't get the sort of training needed."

That made Walter smile wryly. "Christian, what, exactly, do you know of the Hellsing Organization's charter and charge from the Crown?"

The man's clearance was sufficient to know everything. Walter knew that much from his dossier. The question was, how much had Richard seen fit to tell his assistant?

Christian paused, rubbing his fingers over his chin in a gesture Walter didn't think the man even realized he was making. "To be honest, Richard told me some cock and bull story, but I really didn't believe it. Why don't you tell me and we'll see how they measure up?"

Walter drummed his fingers across the notepad once, fingertips bared by his customary fingerless gloves, then nodded. "Right. I can tell you because you have clearance, but you have to understand that what I tell you does not ever get spoken of outside of Hellsing and its operatives and employees."

Christian nodded once, slowly, all trace of his grin gone. Without the smile, the vulpine sharpness was back. It didn't make him more attractive, but it did highlight a canny intelligence his smile camouflaged. "I understand."

"Hellsing is charged by the Crown to protect England from supernatural threats," Walter said seriously, watching Christian's face for his reaction. "All supernatural threats, but our specialty is vampires. Your employer and mine are the sons of Abraham van Helsing – the man who, with four others, killed Count Dracula."

The name seemed to reverberate in Walter's comfortably tidy office for a moment. Even now, more than fifty years after his death, the vampire's name still held a sort of power.

"Count Dracula," Christian repeated slowly. "Count bloody Dracula…."

The grin came back as though a switch had been flipped. "I always loved those films. Don't tell. It's a guilty pleasure."

"I won't," Walter agreed, but he wasn't smiling to match the other man's apparent glee. He continued to watch him seriously. "But this is no picture show. Vampires are real. Dracula was real. England has a hidden war on against creatures that would take her citizens and damn them in the night."

He grimaced inwardly. He knew it had to sound fantastical and melodramatic from the outside, but he'd seen too much blood and death to take it anything but deadly seriously.

"Then what do you do, Walter? Do you go out in the night with a stake and a cross to fight the forces of evil?"

"Not with a stake and a cross, no." How he hated these talks. People rarely took it seriously at first. Which was as it should be, granted. He and Hellsing had worked long and hard to help relegate the supernatural to mere fairy stories in the minds of most of England's citizenry. It kept them from panic. It kept them from mucking about with things they should not. It kept them, in a way, safe.

It also kept them from believing the truth when it was presented to them.

"But I am Hellsing's trashman. I am the one that Sir Hellsing calls upon for the most serious situations." He twitched a shoulder in a bare intimation of a shrug. "Still, most of the time, I'm not needed for that, so I found an equally valuable place in the organization for those times when things are quiet."

Christian leaned forward slightly, his expression was something that Walter thought was skepticism that wanted to be allayed. "What does it mean to be a trashman, Walter? Do you carry a gun or recite prayers to protect England's citizens?"  
_  
No, I use deadly filaments of wire to destroy my enemies, laying them to waste before they can lift a finger against me. _

Right. And didn't that sound like bragging, no matter how accurate it was?

Walter shook his head and suppressed a sigh. He lifted his hand, fingers crooking as almost invisible filaments flew out and plucked the white carnation from Christian's lapel, drawing it back to Walter even as the silvery threads disappeared into their rings once again.

"I have my ways," he said, smiling at the other man as he raised the carnation to his nose and drew in its scent.

•••

London again. It was becoming Walter's thinking location of choice. Not anywhere in particular, but when he was in the mood to think – no, it was not brooding – _think_ without interruptions, he found himself just driving into the city from Hellsing's estate and getting out anywhere where the impulse struck him.

Tonight he wasn't entirely sure where he was walking. He knew he was not far from Royal Albert Hall, skirting Kensington Gardens, he just didn't know where his wandering would take him.

The houses were in tight rows of tall brick, practically looming over the street. His footsteps echoed on the pavement, and he felt almost alone in the midst of a city that had hosted human dramas and lives and deaths for two millennia. Somehow it suited his mood to be both alone and surrounded by people.

Christian was interesting. Walter had met ambitious young up and comers before, but something from Christian's dossier stood out and Walter found himself worrying at the tidbit for reasons he couldn't fully grasp.

The comprehensive background check on Richard's assistant had included the standout fact that Christian Wallace of the sharp features, sharp mind, and poorly ironed shirt collar was a homosexual. This was not a rumor; there was confirmation from former paramours in university and overseas.

It should have been enough to have had Richard terminate his assistant's employment. The man knew about it. That was _also_ in Christian's dossier. It was Richard's intervention that allowed him to keep his clearance. Homosexuals were ordinarily denied security clearances.

What was it about Christian Wallace that made him special?

A light voice from above cut through his thoughts. "Look what I find out in the night."

Walter sighed and looked up, already knowing who he would see.

"Angel." Mihaela beamed down at him from an open window with a mug of something cupped in her hands. "Imagine my delight to open the window for some air and see my favorite young man strolling by."

"Imagine," Walter muttered, pulling his hands out of his pockets. "Is this where you live?"

"Do you like it?" Mihaela waved a hand to stop him before he could answer. "Wait a moment. I'll come down. It's uncivilized for us to be calling back and forth to each other like this."

Right. More unexpected company from the vampire. He supposed this explained finding her in Hyde Park before. It wasn't that far away.

He'd just lit a cigarette when the front door opened and Mihaela skipped out and down the steps onto the sidewalk to join him. She wore a white cape over her little suit, a beret perched atop her straight black hair.

Her hair was just like Doru's, Walter realized. Perhaps they were related?

He was opening his mouth to ask her when she shocked him to silence by taking his free hand and starting walking.

"Come on. Let's walk. I like these walks with you. Now that you know where I live, you should come to visit." She chattered on like the child she looked like as she pulled him down the sidewalk. "I don't have many guests I can talk to like an adult. You don't know how much that means to me."

"I suppose not," Walter said absently as he tried to work out how to extricate his hand from her grasp without being offensive.

How had he come to a point in his life where he cared whether he offended a vampire holding his hand?

"Where are we going?"

"The underground," Mihaela announced, taking a happy skip as she said it. "I don't get to go down there often."

"You don't?" Walter made no effort to hide his surprise. "I would have thought it would be someplace you quite liked."

Mihaela cast an exasperated look up at him. "Walter, do you think a child who looks like me goes unnoticed down there if she's alone? Adults see me. They _remember_ me. They think they need to protect me. They want to know where my mum and dad are."

She shook her head. "I may like the underground, but I almost never go down there."

She brightened and pulled him down the stairs into Knightsbridge station. "But I can go down now that I have dear big brother Walter to take me." Her last words were louder as they passed a tired-looking businessman trudging up the stairs to the surface. He smiled at the pair, no doubt approving of this example of fraternal care.

"Mihaela," he tugged on her hand to draw her to a stop. "I don't want to ride tonight. I wanted to take a walk."

"We can walk. We can walk through the train cars, get out the next station, and walk back," Mihaela insisted, even going so far as to try a bit of a pout. "I like it down here."

"That would work better if I didn't know how old you are." Walter frowned down at her. "But I think you lose your right to make that face when you pass a hundred."

Dear God, he was teasing her like a friend.

"One stop and then we walk back. My car is around here and I can't stay out all night."

The little vampire beamed up at him and bounced over to wait for the next train.

"What are you doing out tonight?" she asked, rising up on her toes and settling flat on her feet again. Up. Down. Up. Down. She was just a fount of energy tonight. Walter couldn't help but wonder what had been in that mug she'd had.

"I like to walk." Why was he feeling defensive? There was nothing wrong with liking walks in the city.

"I think you go for walks when you have things on your mind." She gleefully clapped her hands together as a light appeared down the tunnel, heralding the train's imminent arrival. "Why don't you ever tell me about them? We're friends."

"Because," Walter raised his voice over the sound of the train and then just shook his head. Better to wait until they were inside.

"Because," he began again once they were in the train car, automatically shifting his balance as it began moving. "Because I'd rather work things out for myself. There's no need to trouble people with things that aren't important."

Mihaela held a pole in one hand and spun in a circle, for all appearances a little girl simply enjoying herself.

"Do you think you'll trouble me?"

A few people riding in the train car with them watched the pair with varied reactions, from amused indulgence for what they thought were brother and sister, to disapproval for the girl's apparent undisciplined behavior, to incurious boredom, watching them because they were there, not because they were interesting.

"No." he thought the only way he could trouble her would be if he said he had an execution order for her. She might be troubled for Doru's sake, too.

"Then you can tell me, Angel." She settled down in one of the seats and patted the empty one next to her. "Hurry, we only have a few minutes."

Walter leaned on the seat rather than sit next to her. "Right. Tell you what's on my mind."

Was this a bad idea? Almost definitely. So was holding hands, going for walks, and even talking with her.

"Do you think a homosexual is a security risk?"

Mihaela tilted her head up at him, her expression almost serious. "Why? Are you going to tell me something about yourself?"

Her expression went completely serious when she saw him ready to draw away from her. She put her hand over his where it gripped the seat. "No. I don't think a homosexual is a security risk. But you'll understand that my opinions of risk and wrongdoing aren't exactly the same as everyone else's."

The serious, adult expression disappeared to be replaced by that superficial child once more as she released his hand and slid out of the seat. "Look. Here's our stop!"

•••

Mihaela closed and locked her door, peeking out the window to watch Walter turn the corner heading back toward his car.

The vampire pulled the drape closed again and turned to walk deeper into the house. Her little feet tapped on the wood floors, almost keeping time with the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall near the basement door. She unlocked the heavy door with a large iron key and started down the stairs, flicking on the light.

A young man turned grey-green eyes fearfully up to watch her, shaggy brown hair falling across his face to almost hide their red rims and his pallor.

Shadows gathered around the little vampire as she reached the bottom of the stairs and _smiled._

•••

Arthur looked up at Walter as the young man stood at pseudo-attention in front of him. "Tell me about Richard's Mr. Wallace. What do you think? Will he be trustworthy?"

"I think it is too early to say, sir," Walter answered. "He seems quite loyal to your brother, but I do not know how that applies to Hellsing on the whole. I shall be taking him to look at properties tomorrow. I may have a better idea after that."

Good, Arthur thought to himself. He had wondered if Wallace's recorded… "proclivities" might interest or distract Walter. Obviously he should have known better. His retainer had never been anything but loyal and trustworthy. Whether Richard's retainer was Walter's equal remained to be seen.

"I shall expect a full report after you two are finished tomorrow, but if you were to give me an opinion now, what would you say of Christian Wallace?"

"I would say, sir, that he is resilient, but may miss important details. Beyond that, I simply would rather not pass judgment yet."

Fair enough. Arthur nodded and smiled at Walter. The young man was always so reliable when it came to Hellsing's interests, even if he'd gotten a bit more comfortable with that pair of vampires than Arthur would have liked. Even then, he was honest with his master, and for that, the man could not complain.

"Right then. I'm sure you have other things to do than stand around in my office. I will expect to hear from you tomorrow evening."

Walter nodded and inclined his head in the bare intimation of a bow. "I will be leaving you another report unless you want to hear it now. I met Mihaela in the city again tonight."

Arthur sat up straighter in his chair. "Did anything different happen, or did she just want to talk to you again?"

"We only spoke again. Nothing different from past encounters."

"Then you may give me the written report in the morning. I have other matters to attend to." Arthur rubbed his temples with his forefingers before adding, "At least her interest in you allows us to keep tabs on her."

Walter only nodded in response, giving Arthur no indication of his feelings on having a child vampire interested in him. "I'll have the report for you in the morning, sir."

Arthur watched the young man go and picked up his phone. Moments later, a familiar voice answered on the other end.

"I have new orders for you, Bernadette. I'm sending you a file tonight. Christian Wallace is your new focus until I tell you otherwise."


	12. Just Start the Chase

_"Do you trust me?"_

_"What?"_

_"Do. You. Trust me?"_

_A barely contained whimper. "No."_

_"Then we are done here."_

_"No!"_

"Mine."

•••

Christian's trousers were too loose.

That was not an appropriate thought at all, Walter realized, tearing his eyes away from the other man's backside and down to the floor. Really, though, it wasn't his fault, was it? It was right there in front of his face while he steadied a ladder to allow Christian to climb up through the attic trap door, and Walter was a young man with a healthy interest in good tailoring.

Right. That sounded like weak self-justification even to him.

It was the fourth house they'd looked at so far and Walter had to admit that he was getting very bored with the house hunting aspect of helping Richard's assistant. It was giving him time for his mind to wander in directions he wasn't really accustomed to allowing it to wander.

It was all that damned dossier's fault. If he didn't _know_ that Christian was a homosexual, he wouldn't be speculating about whether he was wearing such loose trousers on purpose as a kind of camouflage or if he just traveled too much to have a proper tailor.

Nor would he be speculating about what those trousers were covering and whether other men appreciated what Christian–

_Right._ That had to stop right then and there. This was the way teenage boys' minds were supposed to be - filled with thoughts of bare skin and its mysteries - not the thoughts of a mature butler and hunter for the Hellsing Organization. It was doubly inappropriate that such thoughts were of another man's skin and mysteries.

"... up the torch, Walter. Walter?"

Walter blinked and caught up to Christian's question, passing him the torch before scrambling up the ladder after him. "Sorry, I was thinking about what I need to have done by the end of the week."

Christian tilted his head at him, a gesture somehow made his features seem less pointed while highlighting the quick mind behind them. "I'm keeping you from your duties. How much trouble is this going to cost you?"

"None." Walter pushed away the concern. "I have people to delegate to. The nature of my work means that I must, since I never know when I'll be away or for how long."

"Of course," Christian said as he flicked on the torch and brushed at a cobweb before it could catch in his fair hair and get lost. "The work you told me of yesterday." The torch turned back toward Walter, and Christian went on. "I suppose I have never given much thought to what a monster hunter would look like, but if I had, I don't think it would be you."

"Why's that?" Walter felt himself bristling ever so slightly. What did looks have to do with anything? He'd seen a little girl holding a dead man like a dolly; looks meant nothing.

The light turned away from Walter, leaving him blinking in its absence while Christian wandered deeper into the attic looking for that indefinable something that would have him rejecting this house along with the others. "I suppose I would just picture monster hunters as old and grim and gray and unattractive. Nothing at all like you."

•••

There is only so much one can really say about property hunting, Walter thought to himself as he and Christian left yet another house that Richard's assistant had pronounced unacceptable. The goal was to provide Richard with a minimum of three potential residences to choose from, but so far, Christian had rejected the six they had looked at – the walls were too high or too low, there were too many windows or not enough, the kitchen was inadequate, the attic not secure enough from rodents or bats.

One thing made it tolerable – Christian Wallace himself. Today he was crisply pressed and wrinkle-free, even after trudging through attics and poking about in basements, leaving Walter to consider that perhaps it had just been travel that had left Christian rumpled the day before, rather than carelessness.

Now Christian tilted his head at Walter as they got back into the car. "All this pickiness is making me hungry. Can you recommend somewhere?"

It was a measure of some of the things that had been on his mind during the day that Walter's first thought was the restaurant that Doru had taken him to. He quickly discarded the idea. Just because Christian was a homosexual didn't mean he wanted to be confirmed as one by going to a place with that sort of reputation.

Wait. But Walter had gone there. Was that some kind of confirmation– ?

Walter cut that thought off with brutal quickness. He had gone without knowing the nature of the establishment.

And stayed after he learned what sort of clientèle it had, his mind went on, refusing to let him hide behind excuses.

It didn't matter why he had stayed.

Did it matter that he had been dwelling on Christian's homosexuality and the fact that the man must have had relations with other men and did men kiss like men and women did in the cinema and–

"Walter?" Christian's voice cut through the uncomfortable self-realization and brought Walter back to the here and now. "Is something wrong?"

Walter shook his head as much to clear it as to answer the question. "No. I apologize. I was just thinking of likely restaurants," he lied, not proud of himself that it was his second lie of the day. "Would you prefer something more formal or just a quick stop at a pub that has food?"

Christian looked vaguely wistful as he answered. "Take me somewhere with good pie and mash. I haven't had a decent lunch since I left England."

Walter's mind wouldn't let his train of thought go, though. _Was that why you dreamed of Doru?_ it whispered as he pulled away from the curb to take them to the restaurant.

•••

Walter was determined to put uncomfortable contemplations of his sexuality aside until he had time to consider them in private. "Tell me more about Richard," he asked after the waiter had taken their orders and disappeared the way a good waiter should. "I know what he likes in a house now, I think, but what is he like to work for?"

"Richard?" Christian gave that a moment's thought before smiling. "He's brilliant. I mean that all ways. He's very intelligent, very driven, and I've learned so much working for him."

He picked up his napkin and unfolded it, placing it in his lap before picking it up again and refolding it, apparently restless. "He's practical. Things that matter to other people don't matter to him. That's why I work for him. I'm good with the details he thinks are important and I don't get in his way; that's what matters more than anything I might do outside my duties."

Or anyone, Walter wisely didn't add.

"How did you come to work for him?" he asked instead. "I saw that your employment began in Hungary, but not how you managed to find employment with another Englishman there."

"I went to Budapest in 1947 with a," Christian paused for the barest moment, "a friend. He was concerned for his family and wanted to get them out to England before the elections, since it looked as though the communists would win that time. While he fought with them, our friendship grew strained. They didn't like me, they didn't want to go to England. It was a frightful scene. I spent most of my time out on my own..." His eyes looked elsewhere for a moment and Walter wondered at the slight flinching around his eyes before he waved a hand as though waving away something unpleasant and went on with his story.

"It came to a point after a month where I simply had to leave and go home without my friend or his family. I was in the consulate office arranging my papers when I first heard Richard." Now he smiled, looking truly amused rather than troubled. "I'm surprised that all of Budapest didn't hear him that day. He was furious over some problems with import tariffs and the clerk looked nearly ready to faint under the pressure. I stepped in and offered to help, and the rest, as they say, is history."

Walter wondered at the details that were missing from the story - about the friend, about why the friend's family didn't like him, about what had caused that flinching while Christian remembered Budapest. He was tempted to ask, but Christian hadn't volunteered, and this was a new friend; he didn't want to ruin things by hamhandedly pushing for details the other didn't want to give.

"Tell me what didn't satisfy you about the houses we looked at today. I'll try to get a better list for tomorrow."

•••

Walter steered the car into the circular drive in front of Christian's hotel and parked, waving away an over-eager valet before he turned in his seat to face the other man.

"Tell me again why you're staying here instead of at Hellsing?"

Christian smiled and tipped his head at Walter in a way that Walter was fast coming to consider most engaging. "At first it was because I thought I would have a bit of a vacation – time to myself instead of always waiting for Richard's next call." After a quick glance around to ensure that the valets weren't paying too close attention to them, he leaned fractionally closer to Walter across the bench seat. "Now I think it is to avoid temptation."

Walter found his mouth suddenly dry. Oh yes, he understood the concern of temptation better than he would have thought possible not so long ago. He very nearly found his voice to offer Christian more than just temptation, but the man grinned and reached for the door handle. "But if temptation were to find me once I have a flat of my own without nosy bellboys or valets or maids to tell tales, I would welcome temptation in with open arms."

Walter caught himself and was out of the car and around at Christian's door to open it for him before he could finish his motion to do it himself. He bent to murmur to Christian as the man slid out of the car, "Tomorrow then, let us add a few flats for you to our list of properties to visit."

•••

Christian was smiling as he unlocked his hotel room door and let himself in. The day had gone perfectly. Richard should have suitable accommodations and office space waiting for him by the time he arrived, and if Christian had made a friend of Walter, that was just how things should be as well.

A cold voice interrupted his thoughts, straightening his back and stiffening his posture with a single word: "Well?"

He slowly turned toward the speaker, his smile dropping away as he sought out the figure in the shadowed corner farthest from the door. Even the shadows didn't conceal the white hair that flowed over the tall man's shoulders, wild and almost restless, as though it would move on its own.

"Is he receptive?"

_Well, hello, nice to see you, too. Can I get you a drink? Maybe some manners?_ Despite the fact that those words crossed Christian's mind, he would rather swallow his own tongue than say them aloud. In fact, considering what was in his hotel room, he was probably best off not even thinking them too loudly.

Instead he schooled his tone to politeness and nodded. "I think he is. You know the looks, the smiles, those things. I probably could have gotten a kiss out of him easily tonight if not more."

Anyone would have flinched from the growl that comment evoked, and Christian did, feeling the blood drain from his face as his heart beat a fearful tattoo in his chest.

"I didn't do it," he hurried to clarify. "Not even a touch. I just showed enough interest to get him thinking."

The questioner glided out of the shadows then to reveal a tall man - taller even than Walter - with that wild white hair and even wilder inhuman red eyes. For all that Christian had questioned Walter's work for Hellsing, the man had known all along that vampires were real.

"Not. Even. A touch." He bit off the words as he approached Christian, almost stalking him. "Were you tempted?"

Christian flinched again, taking a step back without even realizing he was doing it. "You said don't touch. I did exactly what you said. I'm not stupid."

Not for the first time he regretted the strange circumstances that had brought this creature known to him only as Mr. de Ville into his life. He should never have gone to Hungary. He should never have taken to leaving his lover to walk alone in darkened post-war streets. His life would be so different if he had never done those things. He had never wanted to get mixed up in the supernatural. He didn't even enjoy fiction, let alone this gothic horror his life had turned into. Still, life in a gothic horror was better than no life at all, or half-life as one of this creature's slaves.

"Not stupid," Christian's unwanted master echoed, leaning in toward him as though to smell a lie on him. Or perhaps to try to smell Walter on him.

Christian's heartbeat sped with a sudden frisson of terror. What if the vampire smelled Walter's cigarette smoke on him and misinterpreted?

"Give me your hands."

Christian blinked dully at the order before holding out his hands, fighting to keep them from shaking. He didn't think he was any more cowardly than the next man, but he had no illusions of courage in the face of this monster. He had seen what happened to those Mr. de Ville wanted to hurt and he would do anything to keep from being next. Even give Walter to him, if that was what it took.

De Ville took Christian's hands in his own cold hands and raised them to his face, drawing in a deep breath, taking in the history written on them in scent, finally breathing, "Not even a touch."

The man almost sagged with relief before de Ville used the hold on his hands to tug him against the taller man's body. "But you wanted to," the monster growled. "Don't lie to me. I can smell it on you."

Christian tried to find a way to answer the accusation that wasn't a lie and which also wouldn't get him killed. "I have to want him at least a little to be able to fulfill your orders. The best lies have some truth?" He was fighting not to stammer, struggling to stay reasonable as those hellish red eyes glared down at him. "But I would never disobey you."

There. Truth. He fought not to tremble while the vampire's eyes narrowed in consideration.

"You would never disobey me." de Ville's lips twisted as though the words had tasted vile to him. "You don't serve me because you wish to. You serve me because you are afraid."

How was he supposed to answer that? It was the truth. He just didn't believe that anyone, not even Hellsing's monster hunters could protect him from de Ville. The vampire owned him as surely as if Christian truly wanted to be his cat's paw. Better to just stay silent.

De Ville nodded as though Christian had given him the answer he wanted. His lips twisted again, now into a smile that made Christian's stomach clench painfully.

"You have my permission to want him." The vampire released Christian's hands and the man thought he'd navigated another dangerous encounter with his master. Then he spoke again, his smile showing so many razor teeth that Christian barely kept himself from running: "But he is as much mine as you are; he just doesn't know it yet."

De Ville's hands clamped down on Christian's biceps so hard that there would definitely be bruises. "I'll just mark you for your own protection." He used his hold on Christian to drag him toward the bed. "If he sees you without clothes, he won't want you anyway."

•••

"Well?" Arthur tapped his pen on his desk blotter and grimaced as it spat ink out to soak into the heavy paper.

Cradling the telephone while he moved documents out of the way and blotted the ink, he focused on the crackling voice of Gérard Bernadette. "What did you learn about Wallace?"

"Nothing his dossier didn't already tell us except that he had a habit of stealing fruit pies off his grandmother's window sill when he was a boy," Bernadette said after a rustle of paper from the other end of the phone line. "His grandmother's neighbor still remembers that. She said she put her pies to air on a second floor sill because of him. 'A good boy other than that. Always swept the walk without being asked.' Meaningless, in other words. He's clean. There's no other way your brother could have gotten him to keep his clearance with his being a poof and all.

"We have him under constant surveillance. Followed him today while he was out with your butler. They looked at houses and offices and had a late lunch. I had a man in the restaurant near them. They talked and agreed to meet again tomorrow to look at more properties and dinner after."

There was a pause and the sound of Bernadette drawing on a cigarette. "He's been alone in his room ever since. The lights didn't go on after dark. No room service. Nothing else to report. I'll report if there is."

"Do that," Arthur said before hanging up, frowning to himself. He should be happy to hear that everything was checking out perfectly. It probably wasn't even Wallace he was feeling this sense of wrongness about – even after all these years, Arthur couldn't bring himself to feel comfortable about the thought of his older brother returning to England, and more importantly, to Hellsing.


	13. Packs His Tongue Into a Suitcase

_A rustle, faint, of skin on sheets._

_A hiss, just as faint, of a breath released through clenched teeth._

_"Never let this end...." _

•••

From a distance, it looked like Walter was dancing.

Christian slid a sidelong glance at Arthur Hellsing to see if the other man was as perplexed as he was, but he was smiling as he looked through his binoculars.

Arthur had assured Christian that it was for their safety that they had stopped at the top of a hill less than a quarter mile away from the practice field, but he couldn't see what was so dangerous about a butler dancing around in a flat area dotted with seemingly random concrete pillars, empty cars, and the scattered remnants of brick walls from what might have once been a home.

As though he felt Christian's eyes on him, Arthur lowered the binoculars and met Christian's gaze. "You'll understand better with these." He held the binoculars out to Christian. "It's more impressive than you think."

Christian turned back to the field and raised the binoculars.

•••

Walter moved on through his practice session, one hand rising above his head to spin out a cyclone of flickering silver, his other hand dropping to his waist to throw out five more controlled loops of wire. When he was younger, he would come out of these sessions with cuts caused by his own imperfect control. These days it was a point of pride not to damage anything but his target.

Today he was putting his pride on the line to extend his control. After his encounter with the vampire in the deep shelter, Walter had been forcibly reminded that he was not a creature of the darkness as was his prey. If he was to survive, he must use the tools at his disposal to their fullest capacity.

The wire continued its dance around his body even as he closed his eyes and took a step forward, focusing on the subtle feedback from ten spinning strands – a rock there, a wall a bit farther, and... a pillar, it must be, from the way the wire encountered resistance down the middle of his path but open space around it.

Eyes still closed, he spun his body away from the wires' protection, unfurling them fully to wrap the head of the pillar and decapitate it. The wires deftly caught and wrapped the chunk of concrete and Walter spun again, grinning as though playing a homicidal game of crack the whip with the concrete in his wires' grasp. Once, twice, he spun, building momentum, and then with a flick of his fingers, released the concrete to hurtle into and through the brick wall he had first touched with tentative tendrils of wire.

He opened his eyes to survey his handiwork and laughed. Let that nightmare come at him again. Let him _try._ Walter would be ready.

•••

"Come on, my boy," Arthur cut into Christian's slack-jawed amazement by taking the binoculars from his unresisting fingers. "We'll let Walter know we're here now."

Down on the field, Walter was moving into another series of maneuvers that seemed designed to leave a swathe of destruction everywhere he went, pillars sliding into pieces and metal flying off of cars like shrapnel. Without the binoculars, Christian couldn't tell if the young man's eyes were open or not, but that hardly seemed to make a difference.

Arthur gave him a nudge. "You're gaping." With a laugh, he started down the hill, pausing halfway down to put his fingers in his mouth and let out a piercing whistle before flashing a grin at Christian. "Don't tell Sir Islands I did that; he's been stodgy ever since our Eton days and I won't hear the end of it from him."

The whistle served its purpose, giving Walter warning that others were coming who didn't want to become part of his deadly workout. By the time they reached him, Arthur first and Christian trailing stiffly behind him, Walter had pulled the wires back into his rings, brushed a few errant strands of hair off his face, and straightened his waistcoat when he saw it was Arthur who had interrupted.

"Sir Arthur." He favored his master with a small bow. "Am I needed?"

"No." Arthur smiled approvingly at his butler and held out a hand to indicate Christian. "Mr. Wallace was early today and I thought he might find watching you at practice as interesting as I always do."

Christian nodded, eyes flicking down to Walter's hands and rings and then up to his face. "Sir Hellsing was right. I have never seen such a thing."

"I should think not," Arthur interjected, almost beaming with pride. "Walter is a unique asset."

Walter cut in before Arthur could get any more effusive, embarrassing him further. "We all have our skills." A cigarette right now would do a treat. "Mr. Wallace, if you're ready to get back to finding proper accommodations for Mr. Hellsing, I won't keep you waiting."

Christian understood Walter's discomfort and nodded. "If you please. I would like to finish earlier today if it's possible." Not knowing what Walter chose to share with his employer, he didn't mention that they had arranged to have dinner together later. He accepted the grateful smile Walter gave him with a nod and a conspiratorial wink that Arthur couldn't see from his angle.

After all, they were just a pair of employees who were in this together, right?

•••

Christian stood transfixed in front of the Seventh Spectral Peril, taking in every detail with a degree of rapt attention that Walter found more fascinating than the print itself.

Walter watched Christian, trying to determine what he was thinking. His lips were parted, his cheeks were pale, and his eyes wide, almost with fear. He looked from Christian to the print, but he'd seen it before - the first night he met Doru - and hadn't found the Seventh Spectral Peril to be the that disturbing. It was just a collage of images - a spyglass, an organ (a heart perhaps?) wrapped in wiry hair, some buttons, a snail, and a staring eye with three irises and pupils.

From Christian's reaction, and the way his own thoughts turned to Doru, Walter questioned his choice to bring his companion here. It had seemed a good idea after a day of house hunting and a quiet dinner in a newly-opened brasserie. Walter hadn't wanted to see the evening end and had suggested the gallery to extend their time together by another hour or two.

It had been almost enough to think that perhaps they were out on a date.

Now he'd somehow managed to terrify Christian and he wasn't sure if there was something wrong that he, Walter, couldn't see the source of Christian's fear. Doru's pointed comment about his humanity came back to him, _Do you really think that behind that human mask you wear, that you're just like them?_

He had opened his mouth to ask Christian if he wanted to leave when two new arrivals caught his attention. Or rather, one of two new arrivals caught his attention. Doru was just handing his coat to his companion and leaning down to murmur something in the young man's ear when he locked eyes with Walter. For a moment, neither Walter nor the vampire moved, then Doru put a hand on the young man's arm and stood up again, sending his companion to find the coat check.

"Walter," he said, threading his way through the patrons to Walter's side. "What an unexpected pleasure to see you here once again."

Walter put a hand out to Christian, drawing his attention away from the print at last while Walter instinctively put himself between Christian and Doru. "I brought a friend. Christian, this is an acquaintance of mine, Doru. Doru, this is Christian. He works for my employer's brother."

He watched Doru's face for a reaction to the introduction, but saw only good will as the two shook hands. "What a pleasure to meet you," Doru said, releasing Christian's hand. "You are the first friend of Walter's I have met." And though Walter listened for any hint of emotion in the comment, he heard nothing but honest pleasure.

Doru's companion joined them then, smiling up to Doru without comment, clearly awaiting an introduction. "Philip, allow me to introduce you to my friend, Walter and his friend Christian. Walter, Christian, Philip is a good friend of mine and an artist who is currently studying in Paris. I make it a point to take him to at least one gallery when he comes to see me here in London."

Philip was small where Doru was tall, ruddy-skinned where Doru was pale, and blond in contrast to the vampire's midnight-black hair. He had an open smile that he turned on Christian and Walter without hesitation. "I'm so glad to meet you both." He reached for Christian's hand and then Walter's. "Doru has the most interesting friends. I'd love to sculpt you." He gave Walter's hand an extra squeeze before releasing it. "Or both together if you'd like."

"Philip, you should at least give them time to get to know you before making such offers," Doru chided good-naturedly. "He's one of those people who come to galleries for the _art,_ of all things."

Remembering how he and Doru had spent their time at this gallery before, Walter wondered why Doru bothered with Philip, then looked away for a moment as he realized just why Doru might bother with the man.

"I understand completely," Christian said, surprising Walter out of his thoughts. "A gallery is for the appreciation of art. If I wanted to read, I would go to a library, to eat I would go to a restaurant. Why would I come to a gallery for anything else?"

"Exactly!" Philip beamed up at Christian. "Doru humors me, but he comes here for the people, not for the art."

"And you, Walter?" Doru asked. "Why do you come to places like these?"

"A bit of both," Walter said, feeling put on the spot. "But there is only so long you can look at the art, while the people keep changing."

Philip scoffed and reached out to take Christian's arm. "Let's leave these two philistines to each other if that's the way they're going to be about it." As he led the bemused man away, Walter could hear Philip launching into his opinions on the superiority of sculpture over painting.

"Well," Doru said, a tinge of laughter in his voice, "imagine that. I do believe my companion has absconded with yours."

"Yes..." Walter shifted to stand beside Doru, giving him a vantage from which to watch Philip and Christian as they stopped in front of the first of the Spectral Perils. "Does he know what you are?"

"Of course not," Doru murmured, looking down at Walter. "He would either have absurd romantic illusions about my nature, or he would be too terrified to see me again."

"You don't know which?" Walter realized that tonight Doru wasn't wearing glasses, and his eyes were a brown deep enough to almost be black. _He should never hide his eyes behind those red lenses. _

"Humans can be so unpredictable," Doru said with a smile. "Haven't you found it so?"

Staring up into Doru's eyes, it was all Walter could do to nod. Yes, they were unpredictable, weren't they?

"Your friend Christian..." Doru broke the eye contact first to glance over at Christian and Philip. "Does _he_ know what you are?"

"He knows what I do."

Christian and Philip had moved on to the second Peril and were in deep discussion, oblivious to the fact that they were under discussion.

Doru shook his head almost impatiently. "But does he know what you _are?"_

"What I do and what I am are the same thing." Walter frowned, looking back at Doru. "And he has seen me at practice."

"Ah, practice. Then he has not seen you at in your element and has not seen all of you." Doru turned his focus back to Walter. "Will you allow him to truly see you?"

He didn't have to think about it, Walter shook his head decisively. "No. Never." Humans were so unpredictable, after all.

"Then he is just a friend and not something more. Forgive me for prying, but I had thought...."

"You thought what?" Walter asked sharply before he stopped himself and forced his tone to neutrality. "That we were together the way you and Philip are?"

"Angel." Walter was surprised at Doru's hurt tone. "I do not harm Philip. Look at him. Does he look as though I victimize him?"

Philip hardly looked like some vampire's victim as he chatted animatedly with Christian. He looked healthy and happy and deeply engaged in their conversation. He did not look like the ghouls that Walter so often had to dispatch after losing their lives and souls to a vampire's bite.

"No," he admitted reluctantly. "He seems fine."

"He _is_ fine," Doru stated firmly. "And he will remain fine. Just as you can take pleasure in your Christian's company without his knowing all of you, I can take pleasure in Philip's. And if it is not all that I would want...." He let the sentence trail off and shrugged. "I have learned that honest companionship is the rarest of commodities for us."

•••

_The rarest of commodities for us_ lingered in Walter's head for the rest of the evening, through less pointed conversation with Doru about the gallery's patrons, through superficial chatter with Philip and Christian when they returned, through the drive back to Christian's hotel, and through the interminable drive back to Hellsing thereafter.

_...for_ us.

_Will you allow him to truly see you?_

_No. Never._

_The rarest of commodities.... _

He didn't even have it in himself to curse Doru for his disquiet. He had finally reached the point of acknowledging his attraction to... to other men and Doru had gone and unsettled that tiny bit of peace by pointing out that he was still hiding himself.

He pulled through the gates at Hellsing Manor and left his car at the motor pool. He acknowledged the nods and greetings of the house guard and staff with his usual calm, giving none of them any indication of his troubled mind.

He didn't know where he was going until his path led him to Arthur's office and he wasn't sure what he was going to say until the question left his lips. "Sir. Would you..." How to phrase it? "Would it affect my position here if I were to," he hesitated for a bare moment before his own loathing of fear drove him on, "have a liaison with Christian Wallace?"


	14. The Shamed, The Damned, The Blamed

_"Forgive me."_

_"For?"_

_"I should never have looked elsewhere." _

•••

"Would it affect my position here if I were to have a liaison with Christian Wallace?"

Of the many problems Arthur had anticipated ever having with his butler, he could honestly say that he had never considered that Walter would come to him for permission to have relations with his brother's assistant. He _had_ considered that perhaps Walter would never settle down with a nice young lady to have little Dornezes, but he had assumed that he would never have to know any of the actual details of who Walter passed his time with as long as it wasn't a security risk.

Arthur leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers while he considered how to answer the question. How would Richard take it? And would he prefer it if Richard were pleased or displeased? Did Richard even have to know?

He contemplated those and other questions – security issues and propriety and how many lectures from Islands he would have to listen to while he watched Walter. It would be fair at this point to admit that he was also wondering how long he could make his butler wait before he fidgeted even a little.

"Walter," he said at last when it seemed that he was not going to get a fidget out of him no matter how long they waited, "are you certain this is what you want?"

"Sir," and Arthur was oddly pleased to hear at least of touch of asperity in Walter's response, "if I had any doubts, do you think I would have come to you with this?"

"No, I suppose you would have kept it to yourself," Arthur admitted.

He opened the humidor on his desk and let Walter lean in to light his cigar before going on. "I trust your judgment or you would not have the position of responsibility that you do. As head of this organization I must caution you not to let your personal decisions interfere with your professional decisions or Hellsing's mission." He held up his hand before Walter could provide the expected assurances that he would never do that. "But if this is the difficult path you choose, I will only expect your discretion and good sense."

He drew smoke from the cigar and considered his next words carefully. He was giving permission to his servant – a man for whom he held considerable respect – to violate social norms and he wanted Walter to understand _why._ "We already live beyond the pale, my boy; I don't think that I can, in good conscience, demand that you live a more conventional private life than your professional life."

•••

"...one more house; the broker left a message at my hotel with this address and I do want to see it today." Christian leaned forward in his seat to try to catch Walter's attention, but he seemed both intently focused on the road and a million miles away. "Walter?"

_We already live beyond the pale, my boy. _

"Walter, are you listening to me? It's just one more house, and I know it's getting dark, but—"

"No, we can go," Walter said hurriedly, pulling himself back from replaying the prior night's conversation with Arthur for the hundredth time. He had done his duty to Hellsing by speaking with Arthur; now he would have to tell Christian of his intentions and hope they were reciprocated. He had to believe they would be.

He flashed Christian a smile before turning his attention back to driving. "Just give me the address."

The last-minute addition to their itinerary was well outside of London, which surprised Walter since Christian had dismissed most homes outside the city proper as being inconvenient for Richard's needs. It was larger than other homes they had looked at, as well as being more isolated than any of the others, with no neighbors in sight when Walter navigated the Bentley up the long, cobbled drive to the front portico.

"The broker said he would leave it unlocked for us and send the groundskeeper by later," Christian explained as he got out of the car and looked around. They had made it just as the sun was sinking below the horizon, and Walter assumed they would leave inspecting the grounds for another time if the house passed muster. "He lives somewhere on the property. I don't know where."

Christian looked tired and perhaps a bit anxious, and Walter couldn't help but wonder if he were somehow picking up on Walter's own feelings. Walter had hardly slept the night before, thinking about the day to come, how he would advance his case to Christian, whether the day would end in ways he might enjoy, or if he would go home to his quiet room in Hellsing Manor feeling a fool.

"What's supposed to be so special about this one?" he asked, following Christian up the steps to the front door. "I thought Richard didn't want to live so far from the city."

"He doesn't," Christian agreed. He tried the door and found it unlocked. "But this house happens to share a boundary line with property owned by Samuel Masterman, and Richard has been trying to form a business alliance with him for years and hasn't been able to find a way to make inroads with him personally. This might be the way."

"Clever," Walter said as they entered the spacious foyer. It took a moment's fumbling to find a light switch, but then lights came on to illuminate the room. It was dominated by a pair of staircases that curved up the left and right walls to either side of the door, leaving an expanse of black and white tile under an enormous chandelier in front of them. "You'll need a full staff here. I can give you some names."

He pushed the door closed and put a hand on the small of Christian's back, hoping the gesture seemed natural and didn't convey how foreign this was to him. He was going to do this. He was going to take this step and he wasn't going to look back. He was going to—

—feel a lump of metal there?

"Is that a gun?"

Christian startled and spun around gracelessly, moving away from Walter's hand and bumping against the wall at the foot of the left staircase. His face was pale except for two hectic patches of color on his cheeks and his answer came out in a rush. "N— I mean yes. Richard thought I should carry it because getting too close to Hellsing is dangerous. I didn't believe him and left it in its box, but after I saw what you can do, I started to believe, so I..." He took a deep breath and visibly sought for calm, continuing at a more normal pace after a moment. "I thought I'd start carrying it like he wanted."

"Do you have a license?" Walter asked, after sorting through Christian's torrent of words. "Hellsing can arrange one for you if you don't. There's no need for concern. Richard was right." He was cursing himself for having chosen exactly the wrong place to touch the other man to ease into more intimacy, but it wasn't as though he'd been anticipating finding a gun in what he'd thought would be a good, not quite neutral place to initiate contact.

Christian shook his head, followed by a nod and Walter took some comfort from the fact that he wasn't the only one discomfited in this scenario. "I have a license. I just... I didn't think... I'm not used to carrying guns. I don't even know if I'd know what to do with it."

Oh brilliant. What was he even doing with a weapon if he wasn't sure he could use it? Rather than lecture Christian on the dangers of carrying an unfamiliar weapon, Walter took a deep breath and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'll teach you starting tomorrow. You'll come with me to Hellsing's gun range and you'll be an expert before you know it."

_Now,_ he told himself. _You're a man of action, prove it now._ Walter steeled himself and put his other hand on the wall beside Christian. "But tonight..."

Christian's eyes widened and he put a hand up on Walter's chest. Before Walter could determine if it was a warding gesture or an inviting one, a cry of pain rang out from upstairs, banishing all thought of romance in an instant.

"Stay here," he ordered, already skipping stairs on his way up to find the source of the cry. "Or go to the car and lock the doors."

At the top of the stairs, Walter swiveled his head and holding his breath to try to hear any repetition of the cry. A faint sound of sobbing led him to the right until he stopped at a T-intersection. The sound was fading as though the source was weakening. He glanced left and right but the sound was no stronger from either direction.

He looked up and spotted the outline of the drop down attic stairs. What was it about attics and basements? Didn't anyone just use a bedroom? Maybe the kitchen for easier cleanup? He hooked a filament of wire through the handle and pulled, stepping back as the stairs unfolded to reveal a rectangle of blackness broken by shining points of red.

_Shit._

He tensed to send a whirl of wire up through the opening when something hard pressed into the small of his back over his spine.

"Don't, Walter. I don't have to be any good with a gun to hit you like this."

Later, Walter would feel. He would feel betrayed and angry and hurt and like a blind fool.

Later. When he had survived.

Christian had just moved his place on the board from ally to enemy. Walter acted with the remorseless efficiency that had kept him alive in his chosen specialty. The only thing that moved was his fingers, but that was all that was needed. Wire spun out to create an ethereal-seeming halo around him, but nothing ethereal could wreak the damage that those glinting strands could.

Christian had no time to pull the trigger, no time to react, no time to even make a sound. Wire cut through flesh and bone and steel alike, sending Christian's body tumbling to the floor in neatly severed chunks. A deliberate jerk on the wire sent pieces of his gun and gun hand hurtling away from Walter's back and into the wall.

No time to look back, not with a red-eyed enemy crouched right over his head. Not even a full second had passed from Christian's threat to Walter's reaction, and now he leapt directly upward, one hand sweeping up from his side to cast a web before himself. If the vampire had met his leap, it would have been destroyed as easily as Christian had been.

But even as his foot touched the stair, the vampire leapt past him with a bestial snarl and a swirl of white hair, through the eye of the hurricane of wire that spread around Walter, to land on the floor where the remains of Christian Wallace lay in a spreading pool of blood.

At the top of the stairs, Walter whirled in time to see the glaring red eyes of the creature that had assaulted him in the deep shelter. They glared up at him even as the vampire dipped its head to lap its inhumanly long tongue down into Christian's blood. It shot out a commanding hand and the stairs snapped upward, shutting Walter in claustrophobic darkness.

"Who's there?"

A man's call cut through Walter's anger before he could tear a hole in the attic floor with his wire. It was weak, hoarse, but he didn't see how it could be the creature downstairs. He spun the wires once again, cautiously, letting them describe the space without affecting it, dancing over the support beams and walls with a spider-light touch and finding a space in the middle of a wall that signaled an open door.

He drew the wires back to shield him again and carefully crossed the floor, wondering when he would hear the drop down door pulled down again, or hear the vampire tear through the floor itself to get to him.

"I said, who's there?" The man's voice was strained, but growing stronger.

_"Shh,"_ Walter hissed. "Is there anyone with you?" He made it to the door and slid his hand up along the wall, feeling for a switch.

_"Walter."_ Walter recognized the voice with a start.

"Doru?"

"There's a cord for a light about three feet in front of you, hanging from the ceiling," Doru said urgently. "No, to your right. A little more... There."

Walter pulled the cord, and later, when he allowed himself to feel, he might wish he hadn't found it.

The attic flooded with harsh, flat white light, turning everything black, white, and red.

Doru lay nude, strapped to a metal slab so solid Walter wondered how it didn't fall through the floor. He had open, bloodless wounds on his body that gaped obscenely, but he still managed to twist his lips into something that Walter thought might be a smile or relief. There was nothing erotic about the scene and Doru's nudity barely registered in the midst of the rest of the horror.

To either side of him, near enough that the scent of their blood must have been a torment, were two heavy gurneys. On one lay Philip, his smile lost forever to be replaced with a rictus of pain frozen there in death, his body a horror of cuts that revealed more of him than nature had ever intended. On the other lay a young man Walter did not immediately recognize. His head lay turned to the side, his face covered by shaggy brown hair. He had been treated no better than Philip, but the angry red of partially-healed wounds said that he had suffered much longer.

"Doru," Walter breathed, glancing back to reassure himself that there were no red eyes sneaking up on him from the dark. He crossed to the slab where Doru was bound, but hesitated before opening the bindings. "Can you control yourself? I want to help, but I won't be your victim."

"I would rather die." Doru twisted his hands in the heavy cuffs and grimaced when wounds pulled. "Please, Walter."

It wasn't an easy choice to make, taking a wounded vampire's word, but Walter made it. "Warn me if you hear him."

In just a moment, he had sliced through the cuffs and leg shackles and slid an arm under Doru's shoulders to help him rise. "He has to still be here. Do you know where else he might be?"

"N—" Doru cut off the groan that interrupted his answer and pressed his lips tightly together.

Walter had never seen Doru so pale and inhuman. His skin was stretched so tightly over the bones of his face – and the rest of his body for that matter – it almost looked as though the bone would slice right through skin. His fangs were fully extended and he turned his face away, shuddering with tension and agony when Walter helped him slide off the slab.

"High silver content," he whispered when his body no longer touched any part of the slab. "Kept me weak.

"Please get me out of here."

Right. Easy enough. Just get the gravely wounded vampire out of the isolated house, past the lunatic vampire who had apparently set up some personalized house of horrors here. _And not get eaten by your friend. _

"Do you know any other way out?"

"No."

"To Hell with this," Walter muttered and lashed a hand out toward the wall, turning his wrist to drive wire forward and through brick and mortar, out into the chilly evening air. "I'm getting you out of here and then I'm finishing this bastard off for good."

He helped Doru to the hole in the wall and braced himself to kick the hole open wide enough for them to pass through.

"Remember, you gave your word," he reminded Doru before he threw himself out of the hole with the vampire clasped tightly against his chest.

For just a second, there was just the thrill of adrenaline and free fall, then an anchor wire wrapped around the attic support beam slowed their plummet to the ground, letting Walter unwind wire and rappel down the side of the building.

At the bottom, he spared time to look around, still clutching Doru against him. There was no sign of the white-haired vampire. He could get Doru to the car and leave him there, but that was no protection against a determined vampire. He could try to find the caretaker, but there was no guarantee that there was a caretaker, and if there was, there was no guarantee the man was still alive.

He couldn't leave without trying to find that vampire.

"Doru." He shook the vampire lightly and was rewarded with the limp swing of his head toward Walter's. "Doru, I have to go find him. I'm taking you to the car. Wait there for me and I'll get you home."

It wasn't as though Doru were in any condition to argue. Walter helped him stagger-walk to the front of the house and slid him into the back of the Bentley. He leaned in to the back of the car to cover Doru with his coat, and on an impulse he'd spend the rest of the night wondering at, brushed their lips lightly together. "I'll be back. I promise."

•••

The vampire was gone, of course.

Walter searched the house from top to bottom, pausing frequently to check out the window to assure himself that he could still see Doru lying in the back of the Bentley.

Christian's body remained, but not a drop of his blood. There was a telephone, but no response when he picked it up. The bodies in the attic stayed just bodies, instead of rising as ghouls, for which Walter gave some small thanks.

Walter found nothing that would answer the mystery of why any of this had happened. Why had the vampire not attacked him? Was he that easily led by his blood lust? It was something to remember for when they inevitably faced each other again.

"Take me home," Doru mumbled when Walter slid into the front seat of the car and started the engine. "Take me home, Walter. Don't take me to Hellsing."

Walter pulled out, grimacing when Doru hissed in pain from being jounced on the cobbled drive. "Where will you get blood?"

"Mihaela." His voice was barely audible over the engine. "She'll help me."

"Alright." Walter reached back over the seat and felt Doru's cold hand close over his. "I'll take you home and call Hellsing from there to come clean this up.

"Just one more thing."

"Yes, Angel?"

"Do you know who the other man was?" He winced when Doru's hand closed suddenly tightly on his before releasing; the vampire still had reserves of inhuman strength.

"Didn't you recognize him?" Doru sounded reluctant to go on, but finally did. "He looked just like you."


	15. My Lamb and Martyr

_"I forgive you."_

_"You do?"_

_"Now kiss me."_

•••

Walter gazed dispassionately down at the corpse. Under the glaring lights that Hellsing had brought in to illuminate the crime scene. The body looked unreal - like something that had never had animation, had never laughed, cried, loved...

"He did look like you." Arthur's voice cut through Walter's thoughts. "The hair, the build..."

Arthur leaned over the gurney and almost casually lifted one of the corpse's closed eyelids. "This looks near enough to your eye color."

He straightened and cast a critical eye down the gurney's length. "He wasn't as tall as you, but not many people are."

Walter frowned and shook his head. "Doru said he looked just like me, but I don't see it."

"It's more than near enough." Arthur matched Walter's frown and held up his hand, one finger pointing up. "This vampire gave weeks to torturing a man who looked like you." He raised another finger. "Somehow he used Wallace to try to trap you here." Another finger. "He captured and... damaged the vampire who helped you against him." Another finger. "He tortured and killed that vampire's human companion."

He opened his hand fully. "This isn't the last time you'll see him. He's obviously targeted you and is willing and able to cause you harm from unexpected directions. You must be more vigilant than ever.

"What else did Doru tell you? How was he taken? I want to know everything he heard."

"He was in no condition for an interrogation, Sir," Walter responded stiffly. "I took him to safety, called the alert in to Hellsing, and came directly back here to assist with the search and cleanup." Which had included the caretaker's cottage with the lifeless body of the caretaker.

Arthur stuck a cigar between his teeth and let Walter light it for him, then blew out a cloud of smoke to cover his sigh. Walter was going to assist in the cleanup? He was too close to all of this to clean anything up. He had bloody well asked Arthur's permission to have a relationship with Wallace and then killed him that same night.

This was a mess that only Arthur could clean up, and he didn't even know where to begin.

There were too many questions raised by this debacle. Many of them might have been answered if Walter had been more restrained in how he had handled Christian Wallace. It was easy to second guess Walter's choice, but Arthur would rather have Walter here and alive and Wallace dead than the other way around. Arthur had no qualms about valuing his servant's life more highly than his brother's assistant's.

How was he supposed to clean this up with Richard? And what if, unthinkably, Richard had been aware of Wallace's duplicity? Could it be possible that Richard was actually so bitter about Hellsing, despite his own choice to leave the family organization?

The mere thought made him want a drink, but instead Arthur pushed on with the business at hand. "Will Doru come to us for a debriefing?"

"No, Sir." Walter shook his head decisively. "He has always been clear about wanting nothing to do with Hellsing."

"But not you," Arthur noted. "And you know where he is."

"Yes, Sir, I know where he is."

Arthur raised an eyebrow at the stiffness of Walter's response and his unwillingness to simply offer the vampire's location. The young man had yet to take the time to fully appreciate the fact that he had killed the man that he had contemplated a relationship with. In Arthur's opinion, there was no need to rush to that appreciation; it was better to keep him working, for now.

"He's committed no crime. I never thought I'd say this of a vampire, but rather than committing a crime, he's been the victim of one, and he may have valuable information. Do you think he will tell you what happened?"

Walter considered the question and remembered Doru as he had looked when Walter had left him in his home - wounded and barely able to move on his own. Even hurt as badly as he had been, Doru had made no move to try to take blood from Walter - even though it would have eased his pain.

_I would rather die._

"I think he would, sir. Philip," he indicated the other gurney and its burden, "was someone he cared about. But he was badly wounded and I don't think it would be wise for me to go back tonight. He was going to ring Mihaela to help him."

"Get blood from the medics," Arthur ordered after a moment's thought. "Take it to the vampire, feed him until he has control of himself, and then get his full story. I want a complete report before the sun goes down tomorrow."

•••

Walter hauled a box up to Doru's front door and balanced it on his leg to free a hand to knock. The door swung open before his knuckles touched the wood.

Right. Showoff.

He slipped through the open door and pushed it closed with his foot. Doru was where Walter had left him, lying on the couch covered with a blanket, the telephone sitting on his lap.

"Did Mihaela come?" He knew the answer before Doru answered, though he shouldn't have been showing off with the automatic door trick if she hadn't brought him blood.

"She hasn't answered her phone," Doru said tiredly. "And you should not be here until she does. I am not infinitely restrained."

"But you're trying," Walter set the box down next to the couch and removed the lid, revealing neatly packed bottles of blood on ice.

"It's cold," he apologized, pulling a bottle out and slicing through its metal cap with a wire between his fingers. "But it's blood."

He held the bottle out to the vampire, expecting him to take it. Doru looked down and away instead, but not before Walter caught a flash of something on his face. Shame?

He realized that he had never seen Doru drink blood the way he had with Mihaela.

"I'll hold it for you," he said, moving to perch on the edge of the couch. "Until you are strong enough not to spill."

Doru looked up, showing that his eyes' rich brown had bled to a hungry red. "You choose to see me?"

"I see you, Doru." He held the bottle to the vampire's lips. "Drink."

Doru did not look away when he drank. Walter was true to his word and let himself see every aspect of his feeding. He watched the vampire's throat move with every swallow, and fascinated, observed a bloodless wound on his shoulder knit itself closed. He opened another bottle without comment when Doru finished the first and held it to his lips. He watched the skin stretched over the knife edges of Doru's cheekbones fill out, restoring the illusion of humanity an ounce at a time until he no longer looked like an animated corpse, but rather a man who had perhaps been ill too long.

By the third bottle, Doru took the initiative to hold it himself, and Walter took it as a sign that he was feeling better when he grimaced at the cold, viscous blood.

"I could try warming one of them, if you like." He put aside the oddity of the situation and of the offer. This had been Arthur's idea, after all, and hadn't he practically fed someone to Mihaela? This was at least blood that had been collected without harm to the donors.

"No." Doru sat up straighter, pulling the blanket up around his chest when it slipped down to show that the wounds there were healing as well. "Thank you, Angel. You could start a fire instead, if you need something to do."

Walter stood immediately. He couldn't even admit to himself that he was grateful for the opportunity to move away from Doru. As the vampire healed, he moved away from overt monstrosity, and Walter grew more aware of the fact that he was still nude under the blanket.

"Drink as much as you want," he said, turning his back on Doru while he poked around, setting kindling in the fireplace and arranging logs over the kindling. "I don't have to take any of it back to Hellsing."

He took his time, not looking over his shoulder until the fire had caught and spread to the dry logs. Doru had used the time to finish two more bottles and start a third. His eyes no longer glinted red and his skin, where it was not covered by the blanket, was unmarked.

Walter considered his own scars and brushed aside a twinge of envy. The things he could do if he could heal like that...

With the only price being whatever humanity he had left. It wasn't even worthy of consideration.

"You look better." He drew a chair closer to the couch and sat down. "Can you answer some questions now?"

Doru set the bottle aside. He looked better, but tired. Walter wondered if the vampire was yearning for his coffin.

"Must it be now?"

"Sir Arthur wants a full report by sundown tomorrow." Strangely, he felt almost ashamed to be pushing Doru for details. The vampire- no, his _friend_ had seen someone he had been fond of tortured and killed in the past night.

Doru cut into Walter's thoughts before he could more than skim the idea that _he_ had killed someone he had wanted to be fond of. "Then later, Angel, please." He rose from the couch, wrapping the blanket around himself to offer Walter no more than a flash of bare leg up to his hip.

"I wish to wash the stink of the night away and rest. You may either stay here, or return to ask your questions later."

Looking up at him, Walter remembered the fleeting brush of Doru's lips. He had meant to kiss Christian, but had been ironically saved from that mistake by a vampire. Instead, he had kissed Doru. Would he do it again?

_We already live beyond the pale, my boy; I don't think that I can, in good conscience, demand that you live a more conventional private life than your professional life. _

Could there be anything more unconventional than a vampire hunter entertaining thoughts of involvement with a vampire? And that _was_ what he was doing. He had to admit to himself that the thoughts of Doru, and the dreaming of him, and the pang he felt looking up at the vampire were all symptoms of his attraction.

Christian may have been the impetus to accept that an attraction to men did not have to mean a loss of self or self-respect, but given a choice between seeing Christian standing in front of him or Doru, Walter did not doubt whom he would choose again. One of the two had proven himself trustworthy even in extreme situations; the other one was dead.

"I'll stay."

For the first time since Walter had found him, Doru smiled, albeit sadly. "At least I know that you can fend for yourself if anything happens."

•••

Walter listened to the sound of water running in another part of the house. Doru had been gone at least an hour, and every so often the water would stop for five or ten minutes and then start again - the sound of someone freshening their bath with hot water as the water cooled.

This was the first quiet time he had had since everything had happened and he was left alone to brood over it all. He had found an ashtray and settled cross-legged on the rug in front of the fireplace to stare into the flames while he smoked.

Christian was dead.

Walter had killed him without compunction.

He had chosen Christian because, yes, he was a man, but at least he was human, right? Walter snorted quietly to himself. Clearly that hadn't stood up to any real test. And he should be honest with himself - he had chosen Christian because he was _there._

On the other hand, Doru had exposed himself to danger for Walter and had ultimately suffered physically and emotionally because of what he had done for Walter in the deep shelter. And even then, the vampire had been more trustworthy than the human who had been researched and vetted by Hellsing and government alike.

His lips twisted into a grimace that might have been meant to be a smile. Here he was dwelling on his brutal failure at a romantic life when there was so much else to think about - the potential problems between the Hellsing sons when Richard received the news, the Round Table's reaction when they found out about this fiasco, the identity of his so-called lookalike, and what _had_ happened in the hours between when Walter had seen Doru and Philip at the gallery and the next evening when he encountered them again under radically different circumstances?

He stirred the coals with a poker before adding another log to the fire.

And where was that white-haired vampire now? What was he plotting? Who was he harming?

Things were so bad that maybe it was just that it was easier to think about his love life than the other problems.

"Should I offer a penny for your thoughts, Angel?"

Walter jerked in surprise. Of course the vampire moved silently. Doru stood in the open doorway between the parlor and the hall wearing a heavy robe with a fur collar. His damp hair lay flat against his head, giving the illusion that it was much shorter than it actually was.

"I don't think so."

But having had the thoughts, and having moved Doru out of the mental realm of "vampire equals someone to never trust" into the entirely different territory of "friend I have kissed and would kiss again," Walter thought that Doru might just be willing to pay more than a penny for some of them.

"I was thinking about what happened."

"Ah." Doru left the doorway and retrieved another bottle of blood from the box. Walter realized that Doru had brought a glass with him and watched him fill it with blood from the bottle. Having fed and bathed, he was apparently ready to care about civilized niceties such as not drinking directly from the bottle.

"I was also thinking about what happened, though I would rather not." He took a sip of blood and settled in a chair behind Walter. "I know what happened to me, but not what brought you to my rescue."

Walter crushed his cigarette into the ashtray and turned to face Doru where he sat within arm's reach. "I don't even know the whole story of what brought me to your rescue."

He recounted the story of the late addition to their house hunting itinerary, the detail of the caretaker who would supposedly lock up later, the cry that had caught his attention, though not the attempt at a kiss that the cry had interrupted.

"That was me," Doru murmured, barely above a whisper. "He was using silver knives..."

"We found them," Walter said, equally quietly. The silver explained how Doru had been hurt so severely when vampires could shrug off most wounds without a care.

He continued, detailing Christian's betrayal dispassionately, sparing as few words for it as he could and dwelling more on the white-haired vampire's bizarre behavior.

"I don't understand why he would do all this and then just let us go without an actual fight."

"Are you suffering, Angel?" Doru set the glass aside and leaned forward. "I am, and that is what he wants. What he craves. Think about the first time you encountered him and what he did to that girl in the shelter."

Walter preferred not to think of that scene, but he could see the logic of what Doru was saying. The rape in the shelter, his double's torture, Philip's death, and Doru's agonies...

"If he had killed us, we wouldn't be hurting," he said reluctantly. "He wants us to live and hurt more."

Doru nodded slowly.

"I saw how you watched him at the gallery," he said, not needing to name Christian. "Betrayal causes more suffering than a physical pain; it strikes more deeply."

"No." Walter's response was a flat negation of allowing his enemy to have that power over him. _"No_. I am not going to suffer for him. He has given me a gift. I am sorry for what he did to Philip and that he did it to cause you pain on top of the physical harm he did you, but he showed me who I could trust."

Walter rose to his knees and reached out for Doru's hand, finding it still warm from the bath. "I trust you, Doru. I trust you not to harm me or use me." He smiled ruefully. "I think I trust Mihaela, too, but I don't want to kiss _her." _

Doru's fingers tightened slightly on Walter's when he said that and for a moment, Walter thought he had said something he would regret. Then Doru brought his face down to Walter's level and their lips touched.

Like his hand, Doru's lips were warm. Walter felt his pulse speed and his breath quicken from the moment they kissed. There were so many thoughts racing through his head, _His lips are soft_ and _I can taste the blood he was just drinking_ and _I'm kissing a vampire, am I mad?_ But they were all banished as Doru slid down off the chair and onto his knees, releasing Walter's hand to slide his arms around him and draw their bodies together.

They fit. That was the best description for it - they fit together, and Walter's scattered thoughts calmed, though his body did not. When Doru parted his lips to deepen the kiss, Walter followed his lead without hesitation. Doru's mouth did taste of blood, but there was so much else to think on - the scent of him, the feel of his tongue as it touched his lips, the firm muscle he could feel under Doru's robe when he returned the embrace, and eventually the growing lightheadedness as he realized that he hadn't quite gotten the knack of kissing and breathing yet.

It was Walter who broke away at last, pressing a last, light kiss to Doru's lips before resting his forehead against Doru's while he caught his breath.

"Ah, Angel..." Doru's voice was thick with something - emotion, lust, bloodlust - Walter didn't know. "... if this were any other night..."

"I know." If this were any other night, Walter wasn't sure where he would have drawn the line and said enough.

"I know," Doru echoed and kissed his forehead. "But I owe you my part of the story."


	16. Are You Choking on the Smoke?

_Silence, stretching until broken by a sigh._

_"No more fighting it."_

_"Then I can do this."_

_Sheets rustle until the sound is lost under a shaky moan._

•••

"But I owe you my part of the story."

Those words replaced the growing warmth between them with a chill at the reminder of realities outside this room. Did it only take a kiss to make him forget his duty?

Walter nodded and tried to ignore his own reluctance to release Doru. Duty first. Always duty first. What did it mean that Doru had been the one to remind him of that?

Doru reached for his hand as he pulled away to stand. He couldn't imagine hearing the tale while they embraced when he was already dangerously lacking in distance from the vampire. The last thing he needed was something to draw him in even closer.

He looked down at Doru's long white fingers, taking in the details of the almost stone-like smoothness of his fingernails, the fine blue veins that spidered under his skin, and their coolness now that the heat from the bath had started to fade. He compared their inhuman whiteness with the living vibrancy of his own skin and then twined his fingers with Doru's.

It was already too late, wasn't it?

•••

"I was walking Philip to his hotel." Doru began the story at a point soon after Walter had last seen him just the night before. It was hard to believe that so little time had passed.

They had moved to the couch, and though their bodies did not touch, Walter still held Doru's hand. He didn't know if it would offer the distance he felt he needed, but it was more distance than he actually wanted from Doru and it would have to suffice.

"We were in Regent's Park, walking along the boating lake while Philip told me about Paris and his latest work." Doru's tone was calm, but his fingers trembled against Walter's before he tightened his grip and they stilled. Walter caught a flicker of expression before Doru's face smoothed into calm again.

"It came suddenly; I was walking and then there was a pain in my neck and throat and the rest of my body felt as though it disappeared." He shook his head and sounded almost confused. "I have taken victims with such speed, but I never thought to _be_ the victim..."

Walter lightly squeezed his fingers, but didn't urge him to go on. He remembered the way it had felt to be helpless in the dark with red eyes looming above him and he knew how that had struck him at the core of his self-image as the predator, not the prey. How would it feel to have that experience for the first time in... how old was Doru? Younger than Mihaela's 208 years, but by how much?

Doru found his voice to go on, cutting into Walter's thoughts. "I fell like a puppet with its strings cut. All I could do was lie there and watch as Phillip turned to see what had happened and that vampire came out of the darkness to snatch him away. I had to lie there, helpless, voiceless, hearing Phillip cry out and hearing it cut off. I thought he was dead then.

"He should have died then."

Walter remembered the state of Phillip's body and nodded. This was so much harder than he'd expected it to be; he'd liked Phillip in their brief acquaintance and he had just had to admit to himself that he more than liked Doru. He didn't want Doru to have the pain of this remembrance, and he didn't want to be the one who pushed him to it, but he had to. There was only so much of his duty he could put aside for his (infatuation? affection? fondness?) care for a vampire.

Unaware of Walter's thoughts, Doru continued. "Finally the vampire came back. I don't know how long it had been — not long I think — but it felt like hours. He picked me up and there was nothing I could do but let him carry me to a funeral coach and put me in a coffin in the back. I didn't understand at the time why he took special care to lie me on my side. There was another coffin and I could hear Phillip beating at it and calling for help, but none came. Through all this, I couldn't move, couldn't speak, and I still didn't know why."

He raised a hand to rub the hollow of his throat and then the back of his neck. "I found out later, when we arrived at the house where you found me. He took Phillip in first and then carried me upstairs. He hadn't said anything during all of this. It was..." He shook his head and grimaced. "Can you imagine? Being treated like meat?"

He gave Walter a tight smile. "Not that it got better when he did start talking. First he stripped me and strapped me down to that slab. I still couldn't feel my body, so I didn't fully appreciate the slab's true devilishness until later. Phillip was there, strapped to the gurney, and when he saw me, I knew that whatever the vampire had done was something he could see. He made sure that my head was turned toward Phillip and Phillip had been begging for our release, promising everything that came to mind, and then he stopped, staring at me with horror. I think he said my name..."

How do you offer comfort at a time like this? Walter didn't know. All he could do was offer Doru his full attention. He squeezed Doru's fingers to let him know that he was listening and planned to stay right where he was.

Doru squeezed back and sighed, but then he resumed his story. "The vampire made sure I was restrained and then he left me alone with Phillip. Phillip tried asking me questions I couldn't answer. I could move my eyes and my lips, but I couldn't push air past some obstruction in my throat to make a sound. Finally he gave me the answer: 'Doru, there's an arrow through your neck.'"

He made a harsh sound then, Walter thought it might have been a laugh. "An arrow. Outside I could hear the hearse start up and drive away. I assume he was hiding it away in anticipation of your eventual arrival, but at the time, I had no guess as to when he would be back. Phillip and I were alone, I was paralyzed from the neck down, and I had time to hear Phillip grow more and more panicked as he realized what he was seeing around us. When the vampire finally returned, Phillip was in a full-blown panic that I couldn't help him with and I was... fatalistic. He brought with him the young man who looked so much like you, slung over his shoulder. If I hadn't heard his heart, I would have thought he was dead already, and when the vampire first laid him out on the last gurney, I thought it was you.

"He wanted that. I could see him drinking in the look on my face before I realized that it wasn't you. He started taunting me then about my helplessness and my weakness. Telling me how I had brought this upon myself by choosing humans over my own kind. He turned on Phillip, driving him to spasms of terror when he revealed the true nature of his tormentor."

Doru closed his eyes and Walter could barely make out his murmur. "I should never have hidden the truth from him. I thought I was doing us both a mercy."

When he spoke again, his voice was stronger. "And then he showed Phillip _my_ true nature. He ripped the arrow out of my throat and he cut Phillip to bleed into a glass. He poured Phillip's blood over my wounds until my spinal cord regenerated and I regained my voice to scream. I hadn't felt the slab before then, but when sensation returned to my body, the first thing I felt was the silver in its makeup — not enough to burn through me, but enough to keep me weak, enough to cause me pain. I could see that Phillip was horrified by the revelation."

The words began to come faster, almost tumbling out as Doru hurried through the rest of the story. Walter could only guess that he wanted to get it out and over with so he would not have to speak of it again. "He tortured us then. Me. Phillip. The one who looked like you — I never learned his name. In the pain, I kept thinking he was you, even when I knew he wasn't. He told us we deserved it for being inferior, for coming between him and what he wanted, for simply existing. He revealed nothing about himself except that he thought were were beneath him. I don't know his name or where he came from or what he wants and I did ask, I begged. I know that he is endlessly creative in physical torments, that he plans ahead — or else where did the slab come from? — and that he will not consider this over after a single day's agonies."

He shook his head, keeping his eyes fixed on their entwined fingers. "That's all. There is nothing else. He took us in a blitz attack, paralyzing me with an arrow — you might find the arrow at the house, I don't know, perhaps it was special, perhaps it was just a vampire's uncanny aim that let him do it — hitting my spinal cord and preventing regeneration by leaving the shaft there to block the healing. He tortured us, killing Phillip and the man who looked like you and saving me for last. I don't know if he meant to kill me. I know he meant to hurt me and I believe he meant to hurt you.

"And I am sorry. I should have fought him in the shelter that first night, instead of running with you. I might have won. I might have spared us all that followed."

_"No."_ Walter surprised himself with his vehemence. He waited until Doru looked up and fixed him with a resolute gaze. "Don't do that. 'I might have' and 'I should have' will drive us mad. I should never have trusted Christian, I should have trusted you sooner. I didn't. You didn't. We're here. He should never have attacked us and hurt people we care about. I will see him regret it, no matter how long it takes."

Doru nodded and forced a smile. "I should thank him, I suppose, for the gift I have here." He raised their hands and kissed Walter's knuckles. "I had entertained only the slightest hope that you might ever see me as someone you care about. This—" he raised the fingers of his free hand to Walter lips for a feather-light touch, "—was more than I could have even hoped for."

The smile faded and he dropped his hand back to his lap. "But now you have my story, will you be leaving to bear the tale back to Hellsing?"

Walter opened his mouth to say yes, but he didn't, instead he shook his head. It's already too late, isn't it? "No. Not yet. Sir Arthur gave me until sundown, and nothing you've told me is so urgent that I should leave now."

When Doru smiled again, it was more honest, and it raised Walter's spirits to see it on the man's face. "Would I be too forward if I asked you to sleep with me?"

He nearly laughed when Walter's jaw dropped and his cheeks flamed red. "Sleep, Angel. Only sleep. I am far too tired to attempt anything more than another kiss, but it would comfort me to have you near."

_Sleep_ with a vampire? Walter's instincts kicked up an uproar that he hadn't immediately shouted _No!_ But Walter silenced them with a reminder that he'd been ready to trust the human who had betrayed him and hadn't trusted the vampire who had been nothing but trustworthy.

And there was the matter of that kiss earlier...

He settled for an answer that was neither a yes or a no. "I would rather not sleep in a coffin."

"Did you find my bed comfortable when you slept in it before?" Doru asked in response. "I had not thought to invite you into a coffin when I have a perfectly serviceable bed near at hand."

Walter bit his lip before nodding and standing, pulling gently on Doru's hand to encourage him to rise. "I don't have any experience in sharing a bed, but I'll try not to steal the blankets and pillows."

•••

"Did you follow him?"

Gerard Bernadette nodded and handed over a slip of paper. "Yes. The address is there. He went in, but the curtains were closed and all my man reported was that lights went on in the front room for a couple of hours, then they went on in a back room and went off in the front of the house, and then all the lights went off."

Arthur read the address and nodded to himself. It made sense; that neighborhood was near the deep shelter where Walter had first seen the white-haired vampire. It accorded with his story of being taken to Doru's home nearby after the encounter. What was his butler getting himself into?

He hadn't realized he's murmured that question aloud until a sharp voice replied, "Murder. Or so I hear."

Arthur snapped his gaze up to the man standing in the doorway to his office.

A tall, dark-haired man stalked into the room, his face set in an expression that did not scream _"I'm so happy to be here!" _

"Ah. Richard." Arthur rose from his seat and rounded his desk to come face to face with his brother. "The prodigal returns."


	17. I Long for This Mirrored Perspective

_Too late, too late, too late._

_"Regrets?"_

_"None."_

•••

Having slept alone since he was a small child, Walter wasn't sure of the particulars of how to share a bed with another person. It seemed simple enough - get ready for bed, get under the blankets, go to sleep. Right. That was for people who weren't vampire hunters preparing to get into bed with a vampire.

He had followed Doru deeper into the house to the bedroom where he had stayed the night he had been hurt, and now he stood by the door watching Doru turn down the blankets and then pull open a dresser drawer to retrieve an old-style nightshirt that Walter remembered from the last time he had stayed under Doru's roof. He had been too shaken up then to pay much attention to the somewhat old-fashioned choice of sleep clothes, but tonight he seemed desperate to focus on any detail that could take his mind off of what he had agreed to do.

Doru held out the folded nightshirt to him with a faint smile. "I thought you might not want to return to Hellsing looking as though you had slept in your clothes, but sadly I do not think you would be comfortable wearing nothing." His lips curved up just a bit more at the end, but the jest seemed more tired than lustful.

"You can change in the bath down the hall and join me when you are ready." He held up a hand to fend off an imaginary protest, "Have no fear, I will sleep in my robe."

Walter was accustomed to acting decisively in all things once he had made a decision. Now he stood holding the nightshirt and found himself frozen, wanting to stay, but knowing that if he didn't leave he was making a choice that would affect the rest of his life.  
_  
We already live beyond the pale..._

He stood at the top of the slope, saw that it was slippery, and stepped out and into the thrill of the fall.

•••

Arthur faced his younger brother and sighed inwardly. He recognized that expression on Richard's face, and it meant that it would not be a happy reunion. Not that he had expected otherwise; his brother had left Hellsing on a tide of anger and resentment and had obviously sailed back in on the same tide.

Still, Richard had at least some justification for tonight's anger, given the fact that his assistant _had_ just been killed by Arthur's servant. Arthur gave passing thought to wondering just who had told Richard what had happened, but the manor was likely abuzz with the information from all the troops returning from the scene. While it was hardly news when Walter left a bit of a... mess behind, it wasn't every night that the mess was someone who had been inside Hellsing's walls.

"It isn't murder to execute a traitor," Arthur said with a laudable amount of calm. "Your man held a gun to Walter's back and thought to give him over to a vampire. What would you have had him do? Bare his throat for the creature because Wallace was your man?"

Richard snarled and waved away Arthur's question with a brusque gesture. "We only have your _butler's_ word that Christian did anything of the sort. Christian Wallace was a poof, not some vampire's thrall."

"Anyone not protected by faith can be in a vampire's thrall," Arthur said coldly. "You can't have forgotten everything our father taught you."

The gibe made Richard's face twist into an unpleasant grimace and he strode past Arthur to open one of the cabinets behind his desk and pull out a decanter of whiskey and a single tumbler. Without asking or offering to share he poured himself a liberal measure of the whiskey and set the decanter down on Arthur's desk hard enough to leave a mark in the wood.

After he had knocked back the whiskey and poured himself another glass to sip more slowly, he spoke again in a tightly-controlled growl, "I haven't forgotten anything I learned under this roof. If I had, you've certainly reminded me that life is cheap when you're a Hellsing."

Gerard had done everything he could to be invisible during this less-than-happy reunion; now Arthur remembered the man's presence. Ignoring his brother for a moment, he dismissed the mercenary. "Resume your initial assignment for now and I will contact you with new orders when I have them."

Gerard left without a word, although he was sorry that he would miss out on the rest of what promised to be a heated conversation. It never hurt to know as much as possible about your employer - or his family - since his orders could get you killed.

Arthur closed the door behind Gerard and turned back to Richard. "Human life means more to me than anything, Richard. _Human_ life. Not a traitor's."

"Why should we trust your man over mine?" Richard asked. "Christian never had a history of killing people. Your man is a butcher. Even your soldiers call him the Angel of Death."

Arthur's expression closed down into tightly controlled fury. Richard could always do this, always try to put him on the defensive, always imply that his judgment was questionable. Scenes like this were why Arthur had not been sad to see his brother part ways with Hellsing.

"Walter Dornez," he said, carefully enunciating each syllable to keep from shouting them at Richard, "has been nothing but trustworthy from the moment he set foot over Hellsing's threshold.

"Trustworthy," he repeated pointedly for his brother. "And more loyal than family."

•••

Walter woke in utter darkness and for a brief, adrenaline-surging instant struggled to remember where he was and why he was there. Then there was a soft click and the room flooded with a dim yellow light. He remembered then, as though the click had turned on memory as well as sight. He was in Doru's house, in Doru's bed, and hell, in Doru's clothes.

Beside him Doru was just settling back after having turned on a small lamp on the table next to the bed for Walter. He was lying on his side facing Walter and watched him cautiously, as though he expected Walter to bolt and run, or even to react more aggressively.

Rather than look too closely at his circumstances, Walter chose to focus on more immediate concerns, asking, "What time is it?" in a voice still rough with sleep.

Doru's cautious expression relaxed slightly. He didn't look for a clock or watch, and despite the heavy blackout curtains that left the room blocked off from all outside light he sounded confident in his response, "Just past midday. At least four hours from sundown."

Walter nodded and rolled onto his side to face the other man. This was _not_ how he had planned his day to go. Yesterday at this time he had thought that he might end the night with Christian. Today Christian was nothing but meat and Doru was close enough to touch if either of them moved at all.

Walter wanted a cigarette and a trip to the WC, but more than either of those things he wanted to touch Doru before his second thoughts caught up to him. He shifted closer to Doru on the bed until their legs were touching from the knees down and carefully slid an arm over the other man's body, mindful of the fact that he didn't know for sure that Doru was completely healed from his ordeal.

Doru just as carefully put his own arm over Walter and propped his head up in his hand, regarding him intently with eyes that were brown and completely human, even from inches away.

What was the etiquette for this? Waking in another man's bed with the desire between them openly acknowledged? That was one that hadn't been covered in any of his lessons.

Doru saved him from his confusion by speaking first. "You seemed to sleep well."

"You watched me?" It perhaps wasn't the most gracious response, but apparently his internal censor hadn't finished waking up.

That prompted a faint smile from the vampire. "I watched you until I could rest as well. Myths to the contrary, I can sleep anywhere, but I envy the ease with which you fell asleep. I could not still my thoughts so quickly."

Walter gave a half-shrug. "I can sleep anywhere, anytime. Between Hellsing and the war, I learned to eat, sleep, and catch a smoke when I can because I never know when I'll get my next chance."

It was a useful skill in his line of work. He saw and did things that would keep most people from ever sleeping again. Even killing a man he'd entertained an interest in wasn't enough to keep Walter from sleeping; he was more surprised that he'd gotten to sleep so quickly while lying next to a vampire in a pitch black room.

Walter caught his breath, eyes widening slightly. He was unaccustomed to giving out his trust to anyone. There were very few people he could say he truly trusted - Arthur Hellsing had comprised almost the entire list up until now - but he realized now that he trusted Doru, truly trusted him. There was no other way he would have allowed himself to be so vulnerable with Doru; it truly was trusting him with his life.

Trust was the last thing that had stood between what Walter wanted and what he would allow himself.

With that understanding, he saw no reason to draw out what he hoped would be inevitable between them. He slid closer to remove the last few inches between their bodies and lifted his head to bring his lips to Doru's for a light kiss.

Doru's reaction surprised him. He made a quiet sound, almost a groan and tightened his arm around Walter to hold him while he met Walter's lips with a hard press of lips that had little in common with their cautious kiss of the night before.

Surprised or not, this was what Walter had wanted. He did break from Doru's lips for a breathless moment to ask, "Are your wounds all healed?"

Doru's response came out in a near-growl. "Yes." Then he tangled his fingers in Walter's hair to hold him and stole his breath with a crushing kiss.

•••

Standing in the bathroom, bathed and dressed in the clothes he had been wearing the day before, doubt pried around the edges of Walter's thoughts. Had he betrayed his loyalties with what he had done? Had he taken Arthur's words and twisted them to his own selfish ends?

It was all well and good to know that he trusted Doru, but Arthur never would, nor could Walter blame him for that. And Arthur would be justified in not trusting Walter for making himself the intimate of a vampire.

He stared into his eyes in the mirror while he adjusted his tie and straightened his ponytail and asked himself if Doru was really worth losing Arthur's trust. His rational mind said no, but recently he was finding it much more difficult to see where the black and white lines were drawn. Was it sentiment? Was it just lust? Had Doru bewitched him?

He shook his head at the Walter in the mirror - the man who did not look outwardly changed by his time spent in a vampire's arms - and resolved to spend some time in church to think on the matter, and perhaps reassure himself that he hadn't become a vampire's unwitting cat's paw.

"Angel?"

Walter startled and looked to the bathroom door where Doru stood, wearing his robe once again. He looked tired and concerned.

Doru smiled apologetically. "I didn't mean to startle you, but the day is waning and I know you must return to Hellsing. I must ask a favor of you before you leave the city."

Walter left his misgivings for later and went to Doru, finding that he was drawn to touch him now that he had crossed the Rubicon when it came to intimacy between them. Although if he was honest with himself, he would have to admit that he had been drawn to touch Doru almost from the first time he had seen the vampire; it was only now that he could both admit it and do it almost at will.

He put a hand on Doru's arm to guide him out of the bathroom toward the sitting room. If he stayed too near the bedroom with Doru, he had a sense that his thoughts would grow clouded with other things.

"What favor do you need?" he asked, rather than simply promising to do anything for... his lover. How strange to use that word more than abstractly.

"I haven't been able to reach Mihaela," Doru explained, letting Walter lead him as he chose. "I tried ringing her again while you were in the bath and still no answer. She doesn't make a habit of sleeping away from home, so I would expect her to answer. You know where she lives; would you just drive past to ensure that nothing looks amiss?"

Walter stopped and turned Doru to look at him. It was still odd to have to tip his head up to look anyone in the eye, but he was starting to get used to it.

"You aren't as healed as you want me to believe, are you?"

Doru pressed his lips into a thin line before giving a sharp shake of his head. "I am still weakened. If it is that vampire's doing, he is unhurt while I am not at my full strength. I would not ask you to check on her, but it is still daylight when you have the advantage."

His shoulders rose and fell with his sigh. "And I care for Mihaela. I have known her all my life and I can't bear to think of her in his hands."

Walter thought of the small child vampire in the white-haired vampire's hands and tightened his fingers on Doru's arm. "I will look in on her before I return to Hellsing. Will she answer the door at this time of day?"

Doru shrugged and shook his head. "I don't know. If she knows it's you, I think yes. If you would just ensure that there are no signs of violence at her home, I will rest easier."

"I'll do it," Walter said. "And if something is wrong, I'll call in Hellsing. Otherwise it isn't a Hellsing problem."

He looked up at Doru and tried not to think of what they had been doing together just recently. "Will you tell me the story of you and Mihaela when I see you again?"

Doru tipped his head, his expression clouding. "Is that your price for checking on her?"

"No." Walter shook his head. "It's just curiosity. I'll go look in on her even if you don't want to tell me the story."

That brought a smile to Doru's lips. "Then yes, I'll tell you the story." Then he added, "And I will hold you to your word that I will see you again."


	18. I Recall the Push More Than the Fall

_And there's nothing more to say..._

•••

Walter drove with only the barest attention for where he was going. His mind was still back in a darkened bedroom with a man in his arms and the lingering aftershocks of pleasure running the length of his body.

The world should be different to reflect how his own world had just changed. There was no pretending, no dancing, no mental gymnastics he could do to change the fact that he was quite definitely a homosexual.

He was a homosexual whose lover was a vampire.

No, that didn't quite cover it, did it? He was a homosexual vampire hunter whose lover was a vampire.

That certainly wasn't something that was going to come up in polite conversation, now was it? _Why yes, I'm charmed to meet you. What do I do for a living? I'm a vampire hunter. And my wife? No, I'm sorry, I don't have a wife, would you like to meet my lover? He has a gift for conversation if you can overlook the matter of his liquid diet and the fact that he's older than many of the antiques in the room. _

He sighed and fished his cigarette case out of his waistcoat pocket, already knowing that this was his last cigarette and he should probably be saving it for the drive out of London and back to the Hellsing estate. But he was going to be seeing Mihaela - probably - and didn't want her immediately smelling Doru on him. Knowing her, she wouldn't let it go without comment, and he wasn't ready to discuss the matter with anyone, especially not the blunt little child vampire.

So he lit the cigarette and took a long, blissful drag as he navigated his way through the late-afternoon traffic.

He hadn't forgotten where Mihaela lived and soon he was pulling up at the curb in front of Mihaela's house. Everything looked fine at first glance, but he'd hardly expected to find anything else. In his experience, you could find any number of horrors behind a simple closed door.

He rolled his eyes at that melodramatic turn of thought and left the car to stride up the stairs to her front door and press the button for the doorbell. He heard the buzz faintly behind the door, and stilled his breathing to listen for any movement inside the house.

After a minute, he pressed the button again and waited. Maybe she was out. Maybe she had stayed in the home of whoever she had hunted the night before. Maybe she was just asleep in her coffin - idly he pictured her in a tiny white coffin with a doll in her arms - and couldn't hear the buzzer.

Maybe she was strapped to a child-sized slab leaking blood out of countless cruel wounds...

Walter rapped on the door with his knuckles and then tried the knob. It didn't dispel his last mental image when the door opened for him. What kind of sleeping vampire would leave her home unlocked in the middle of the day?

_Damn._

He pushed the door all the way open before stepping into the dimly lit house and closing it behind him.

"Mihaela?" he called softly, scanning the foyer and taking in its details. Umbrella stand with a small white umbrella. Coat rack with a child-sized overcoat hanging from it. Telephone stand with a plain black telephone sitting on the hook.

He lifted the receiver and heard the open line before putting it back in its cradle. The phone was working, so that didn't explain why she hadn't answered.

To his left he saw a formal parlor, dimly lit with its curtains pulled closed. To his right a dining room he was sure had never seen a night's use. Ahead of him a hallway led deeper into the murky house and a stairway led upward to what he assumed were bedrooms. He remembered Mihaela leaning out of an upstairs window with a mug in her hands.

Where was she now?

He moved deeper into the house, following the hallway back to the kitchen, which he was sure saw as much use as the dining room.

"Mihaela?" he called again. "It's Walter."

Nothing.

He pulled open a door in the kitchen, finding it to be an empty pantry.

She could be somewhere else, but after recent events, that just seemed too clean and easy. It almost surprised him, but Walter found himself growing anxious to find her alive, or what passed for alive for a vampire.

The door out of the kitchen into the narrow back garden was locked and nothing seemed out of place. With a last look around, he backtracked out to the hallway again, this time finding a light switch and flicking it on to cast a harsh electric glare in the narrow space that highlighted a grandfather clock against one wall and two doors.

The first door proved to be a coat closet. There were several pairs of small boots, and a bright red cape he had never seen the little vampire wear, but no Mihaela.

The other, much heavier door opened on a steep pair of stairs that led down into darkness. Walter clenched his jaw, remembering the last time he had faced the white-haired vampire in the pitch black underground. The sharp hint of fear goaded him to fumble along the wall at the stairs until he found a light switch and flick it on, illuminating the stairs and the concrete floor at the bottom but little else.

Maybe Mihaela was down there getting her beauty sleep and would be quite vexed with him for interrupting her.

Maybe, but he didn't quite care at that point. He would accept the vexation to reassure himself - and Doru - that she was unharmed.

He called her name again and waited, straining for some hint of motion from the cellar. All he heard was the grandfather clock's ticking and his own breathing.

He muttered a curse to himself and leaned out over the stairs to look through the gaps between steps and assure himself that nothing was going to reach between them and grab his ankles. For some people that might be paranoia, but for Hellsing's hunter that was simply a survival tactic.

He saw nothing but the shadows cast by the stairs themselves, and after shaking the building tension out of his shoulders, began to descend the stairs.

The stairs creaked despite his attempt to step lightly, but that just seemed to be the nature of things - try to make a silent descent and laws of nature demanded that the stairs would creak. He was barely a quarter of the way down the stairs when he stopped to examine marks gouged into the wood along the wall.

He put his hand out to trace the marks, finding that his fingertips easily fit into the gouges. If he had claws instead of fingernails, he could make similar marks, but Mihaela's hands would probably be too small.

"Shit."

He rolled his shoulders again and shook out his hands, letting strands of wire drop from his fingertips to swirl around his legs. He was ready if the white-haired vampire had come after Mihaela. After all, she was dear to Doru, and something akin to a friend to Walter. That made her a target.

"Mihaela, if you're down here, say something," he called as he reached the bottom of the stairs without incident. The cellar was lit by unshielded light bulbs, hanging every twenty feet in the chilly, stone-walled space that ran the length of the house with only a coal furnace, stacked crates, and support beams to break the line of the room.

A thought struck him. What if Mihaela was hiding because she thought he was coming for business reasons? After all, on their first meeting she had pointed out that he was the bogeyman for vampires.

"Mihaela," he tried again. "Doru sent me because you might be in danger. I'm here to help."

He almost didn't hear the tiny voice that responded, so faint that he couldn't tell where it came from. "Your wires say otherwise, Angel of Death."

He looked down at the flicker of silver around his legs and shook his head, flexing his fingers to draw the wires back. "They weren't for you. Doru was concerned- _I_ was concerned that you might have been attacked by a vampire who attacked us both." He advanced toward the front of the cellar where he thought she might have spoken from, peering around crates looking for the diminutive vampire.

"Will you come out or do I have to keep talking to the walls?" he asked, allowing the faintest hint of exasperation to enter his voice.

There was a slithering sound and the flap of the coal chute squeaked and opened to let a small figure slide down to the floor.

Walter hardly recognized Mihaela. She was covered in coal dust, and while she was wearing her familiar suit, it was only because he knew her penchant for white that he could see where it might once have been something other than black and gray.

He also wasn't expecting her to fling herself at him and wrap her arms around his neck like a spider monkey.

"It really is you. I thought it was him again," she said in a rush. "I thought he was mimicking your voice and was trying to get me to come out. He tried pretending to be Doru, too, but I stayed hidden and he went away."

She tightened her hold on him and laid her head on his shoulder, "I thought it was him again, but then I heard your heart. Doru's not hurt? Tell me he's not hurt. You said he sent you."

Walter was briefly immobilized by surprise and warring impulses that wanted to comfort her and _get the vampire off you! _It was the impulse to comfort her that was more foreign and problematic.

"Mihaela," he said uncomfortably. "You're getting my clothes dirty."

She didn't seem to hear him and continued her torrent of words. "He came to the door and at first he didn't seem so bad. He said that he was a _friend_ of Doru's in that way that Doru sometimes has male friends."

She paused for half a breath and said, "I'm not telling a secret am I?"

She went on without allowing Walter to respond. "He said Doru had been hurt and I could smell Doru's blood so I believed him. Almost believed him. Something just seemed wrong."

By this point Walter was trying to extricate himself from her grasp, tentatively putting his hands on her waist to move her. Her next actions made him freeze.

She stopped the verbal barrage and took a deep breath against his neck and before pulling back to look him in the eye. Her lips shaped a little "O" of surprise that showed her sharp white teeth in the midst of the coal dust covering her face.

"Oh." She just stared at him before breaking into a grin. "You _do_ know that way Doru sometimes has male friends. Oh Angel, this explains so much..."

Walter grimaced and pulled her away to set her on her feet on the floor.

"He sent me because you didn't answer your telephone," he said harshly while he tried to brush the black grit off his white shirt, trying not to look as embarrassed as he felt. "Now that I know that you're all right, I have to go. I'm supposed to be back at Hellsing before sundown."

Mihaela sobered and reached out to clasp Walter's forearm, forestalling any attempt he might have made to leave. "Not yet you don't. You said the vampire attacked you and Doru and I smelled Doru's blood on him. What happened? Why are you here instead of him? He can't be _too_ badly hurt..."

She trailed off, but Walter easily caught the implication that Doru couldn't be too badly hurt if Walter smelled of him _that _way. He flushed and tried to pry her fingers off his arm.

"I don't have time for this. The short version is that the vampire captured Doru, killed his friend Phillip, and hurt Doru. He tried to catch me too, failed, and I rescued Doru and took him back to his home where _I_ brought him blood because you weren't answering your telephone when Doru rang you for help."

Mihaela let him pull her hand off his arm and was silent while she apparently absorbed what Walter had just told her.

He more than half-expected her to have some comment about the kind of help Walter had given Doru, but when she spoke, her tone was surprisingly subdued. "Thank you," she said before she walked past him for the stairs, adding, "I have to see Doru."

Walter followed after her, thinking to himself that her shifts in mood were too much to keep up with. Wasn't there some adage about a woman's prerogative?

She reached out to trace the gouges in the wall on her way up the stairs, but said nothing. She stopped at the top of the stairs to wait for Walter to join her before pushing the cellar door closed behind him.

In the time he had known the little vampire, he had never seen her so somber. He didn't think it was fear for herself; she had been all too willing to smile and tease before she had heard Walter's terse recounting of the prior day and night's (had it really only been so little time?) events.

She must truly care about Doru.

It was a strange thought, equating vampires with caring, and not one he would have had all that long ago, but... things had changed lately.

Mihaela interrupted his thoughts. "Can you call a taxicab for me while I clean up? I won't ask you for a ride to Doru's house since you're in such a hurry, but would you do me that one favor? They won't always send a taxi if I call; they think I'm just a child."

How difficult must it be to be over 200 years old and still forced to live as a child? Walter had chafed under the restrictions when he'd been ten, and she looked even younger than that.

"Will you be able to take the taxi while it's still daylight?" he asked, following her down the hall toward the front stairs and the telephone.

"Oh yes," she assured him, still unusually solemn. "I can tolerate the sun." She glanced over her shoulder at him, flashing a hint of her usual smile for an instant. "I just hate it."

He made the call while she hurried upstairs to rid herself of the coal residue and then paced restlessly. He pulled out his cigarette case and turned it in his fingers, not bothering to open it just to see a few stray flecks of tobacco and no cigarettes.

Mihaela ran down the stairs just as the taxicab pulled up at the curb and honked. She still had a smudge of black on her right ear, but had mostly managed to clean up and was wearing a frilly dress and apron in a navy blue that was probably meant to camouflage any lingering coal residue.

She carried a small suitcase and ushered Walter out the door before locking it with a key she tucked into a pocket on her apron and took Walter's hand without asking.

"Just pretend you're seeing me off," she told Walter as they descended the steps to the street. "The driver won't give me any trouble after that."

How had he gotten himself into this? Walter asked himself, but he opened the car door for Mihaela and helped her into the taxi as she'd asked him to.

She stopped him before he could close the door and gestured to him to lean in. When he complied, she threw her arms around his neck in a tight hug and used the opportunity to whisper in his ear. "Don't break Doru's heart, Angel. I don't think he's ever had a human lover he didn't have to pretend to be human for. He's taking so many risks for you."

Walter pried her loose and gave her an unfriendly look, slamming the car door shut a little harder than necessary. He ignored her when he leaned in the front passenger side window and handed the driver a ten pound note, giving the man Doru's address and instructing him to keep the change as long as he didn't stop anywhere else.

He scanned the street instead of watching the taxi pull away. Her parting words had left him embarrassed and defensive and more than a little angry. He did _not_ want anyone getting involved in his personal life, particularly not yet another vampire.

•••

Walter had fought for Hellsing, killed for Hellsing, gone to war for Hellsing, and every time he came home, it was the same as it had been when he left. After the events of the last 24 hours, as he pulled through Hellsing's gates and left his car at the motor pool, it came as a comfort that this truth remained the same.

He strode through the servant's entrance with a nod of acknowledgment for the guard posted inconspicuously nearby. The sun was low on the horizon and he wanted to stop in his room to clean himself up quickly before reporting to Sir Arthur.

His room was a spare and immaculate space. Some people might have found it cold with its overall lack of adornment, but Walter spent most of his waking hours pursuing other interests than interior decorating. His twin bed sat lengthwise against one wall with a small table and reading lamp at its head, the wall directly opposite the door was dominated by a large picture window that was as often as not covered by heavy blackout curtains for the sake of a man who did much of his work at night, and the wall opposite his bed had a door into his private bathroom and a desk with a single picture of his parents in a frame next to the desk lamp.

Richard Hellsing had appropriated the chair from the desk and was sitting facing the door smoking a cigarette and using Walter's ashtray.

Walter stopped in the doorway and was silent while he considered what his reaction should be. He recognized Richard, although it had been at least eight years since he had last seen the other Hellsing son.

He decided that it was just as well that Richard get his recriminations for Christian's death taken care of in private, so he stepped inside and closed the door.

"Mr. Hellsing," he said neutrally, waiting for Richard to make whatever point he wanted to make.

"Dornez," Richard said in a tone lightly laced with venom. "I was wondering when you'd finish swanning about and come back to face your crime."

Walter didn't rise to the bait and merely stood, face set in a calm expression. Arthur could have told Richard that when Walter settled into that "attentive servant" posture very little could get a visible rise out of him, but Arthur wasn't there, and Walter had a feeling that calm would do more to set Richard off balance than defensiveness or anger would.

Having Richard invade his privacy and then accuse him of a crime did in fact make him feel defensive and angry, but since he couldn't kill or even hurt the man, he'd just have to let Richard's temper - which he well remembered from the time before Richard had left - get the better of him.

"Don't you have anything to say for yourself?" Richard asked. He crushed out his cigarette and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "You killed a good man and Arthur might be fool enough to buy your cock and bull story about Christian pulling a gun on you, but I don't. And then you go running off to _feed _some bloodsucker so he'll back up your story..."

He shook his head and looked so disgusted Walter wouldn't have been too surprised to see Richard spit on his floor.

He tipped his head the barest amount at Richard. The man didn't want to hear reason, he wanted to browbeat Walter and then probably turn to Arthur with some story of how Walter had been disrespectful and acting beyond his station. Walter didn't intend to give him a single round of ammunition.

"Mr. Hellsing," he said coolly, "I am but a servant of Hellsing, and I have a report to make to Sir Arthur which he expects by sundown. " He placed a feather's weight of emphasis on _Sir_ for Richard and watched the man jerk as though Walter had struck him.

Served the arrogant bastard right.

"However, I would not want to do my master the disrespect of reporting to him in this condition, so if you will excuse me..." Without waiting to see if Richard was going to excuse him or not, he stepped past the man into his bathroom and closed the door in his face.


	19. Try to Kill it All Away

It wasn't every day one got to shut a door in a Hellsing's face. Despite recent events that had turned Walter's worldview on its head, he found himself grinning at his reflection in the mirror. He had never liked Richard Hellsing; the man had treated the skinny little kid Walter had once been as beneath his notice.

"He notices me now," Walter murmured to his reflection before he ducked his head down to splash cold water on his face. Not that being noticed by Richard would have been a problem if he'd started a liaison with Christian, but that was an entirely moot point.

Despite all his strong words to Doru about refusing to consider might have beens, Walter _did_ feel a pang thinking of Christian Wallace. He hadn't known the man long enough to truly care for him, but he had liked him, and he had been attracted to him. He could honestly say, despite the many times that he had killed, that he had never had to kill someone he liked before.

Still, better Christian than him.

He checked his hair, brushed his teeth, and shook his head in disgust at the state of his waistcoat and shirt. He considered that he had reported to Arthur in worse condition before, his master would probably hardly blink at the black smudges all over Walter's ordinarily immaculate clothes, but it bothered Walter's sense of order. He knew Richard was still waiting in his bedroom, doubtless ready to start haranguing again as soon as he opened the door.

After a moment's consideration, he stripped off his waistcoat, shirt, and tie, leaving his upper body bare. He looked in the mirror again, appraising what he saw there and trying to see himself just for a moment as Doru had seen him. He shot himself a smile - not bad at all - and turned away to drop his clothes in his laundry hamper.

Richard would just have to endure the sight of him like this or he was welcome to get the hell out.

He schooled his features to neutrality before unlocking his bathroom door and opening it. Richard was still there, pacing the room and smoking. He opened his mouth to say something to Walter before realizing the man was half-dressed, a detail that made him pause long enough for Walter to walk past him to open his wardrobe.

It's difficult to get a proper harangue going when the target stoutly refuses to engage. Richard tried, but while Walter didn't ignore him, neither did he give the man more than the barest acknowledgment while he pulled on a crisply-pressed white shirt and a fresh waistcoat. He took a tie from a rack hanging inside the wardrobe and walked past Richard toward the door out into the hallway, tying his tie while he walked.

Richard followed him, filled with accusations and invective, and they made a proper sight for the guards and servants who witnessed the apparently calm butler striding through the halls with the older Hellsing son hard on his heels like a harrying terrier.

In point of fact, Walter was growing angrier by the minute, and it was only out of respect for his master that he did not take any of that anger out on Richard. The fact that Richard had been smoking in his room while Walter was out of cigarettes and had been for hours did nothing whatsoever to help his temperament.

By the time they reached Sir Arthur's study, Walter was hard-pressed to do more than rap sharply on the door and enter without waiting for Arthur's response.

Arthur looked up from the contents of an open folder on his desk, read Walter's tight expression and the open rage on Richard's face, and closed the folder with silent sigh. "Walter," he said, acknowledging his servant first with a nod of his head before looking at his brother with something less than fraternal love. "Richard."

Richard took that as his invitation to let loose. "I thought your man at least knew how to behave with his betters," he started in with Arthur. "He is insubordinate and doesn't know the first meaning of respect!"

Arthur looked from his brother to his butler and Walter could tell from his expression that he was thinking longingly of the bottle of scotch in the cabinet behind him. Walter was thinking more longingly of the cigarettes in the desk drawer back in his room. Richard appeared to be thinking longingly of firing squads or perhaps Torquemada's dungeons. All in all they were three men who were going to have to wait for what they desired.

Arthur pushed his chair back from his desk and leaned back, propping his ankle over his knee and raising an eyebrow at Richard. "My man has returned to me as ordered and is standing there waiting for me to speak first before giving his report. Out of this entire organization he answer to me and me alone. What has he done that you think is so insubordinate or disrespectful?"

"He closed a door in my face, has refused to answer me, and walked right out of a room while I was talking to him," Richard said, pointing an accusatory finger at Walter.

Arthur's other eyebrow rose to join its fellow. "Is this true?" he asked Walter.

"Yes, Sir Hellsing," Walter said. "I hardly thought he wanted to join me in my toilet and I believed reporting to you in good order was my first duty." Walter was rather pleased with himself that he'd managed to imply that Richard had been in his room without coming right out and telling tales on the man.

Arthur nodded and turned his attention back to his brother. It seemed to be dawning on Richard that he'd taken the wrong tack in confronting Walter and Arthur, and he was composing himself to frosty calm while they watched.

"Fine," he said. "Give your report, Dornez, and then we will talk."

Walter waited for Arthur's nod before relating Doru's story of his capture and torture by the white-haired vampire. He looked pointedly at Richard while giving Doru's theory that the vampire's goal had not been to kill either of them, but to hurt them with loss on Doru's part, and betrayal on Walter's. He then added the details of going to Mihaela's home - minus the hugging - and finding that she had narrowly escaped what would likely have been a similar fate.

He did not mention - and Arthur did not ask - where he had slept.

When he finished there was silence in Arthur's office while Arthur and Richard digested what he had just told them. Richard's face set into a scowl, and Walter could almost see the wheels turning as the man tried to work out just how he could turn the report into ammunition for an attack on Walter.

"What took you so long to return?" Richard finally asked. "It can't have taken you all bloody day to question one vampire and play nursemaid to the other."

Walter again looked to Arthur rather than answering Richard. Richard might have the Hellsing name, but he had no formal place in the organization and Walter had decided that he simply did not answer to the man.

"Walter had my orders to return by sundown today and he did so," Arthur said. "He had a very long night and many duties to attend to."

Walter tipped his head slightly in agreement and kept his eyes on his master. He could see that Arthur would have other things to say on the matter, but not in front of his brother. He didn't know what those things would be, but it wouldn't take long to find out.

"Richard," Arthur said, rising from his chair, "I have to brief Walter on his next assignment. As you are not formally attached to Hellsing any longer, perhaps you would like to take this time to get settled in your rooms. I understand that you've been occupied with Mr. Wallace's death since your arrival. I'll be certain to keep you informed if there are any developments." He went to the door to indicate that Richard should _leave_ now.

Richard glared at Walter before he nodded curtly at his brother. "I will have to find a new assistant. Tell your men to expect visitors when I conduct interviews."

"Give them a list," Arthur said. "I will meet you for dinner in an hour if you can find the time. We have an excellent cook. Much better than the one Father always kept around."

He closed the door on Richard with a firm click and turned the key in the lock. Instead of returning to his desk, he opened the cabinet behind it and took out the bottle of scotch he had been thinking of earlier, picking out two glasses to pour a generous measure into.

"Sit," he said, putting one of the glasses on Walter's side of the desk and dropping into his chair with his own glass and the bottle in front of him. He opened one of his desk drawers and removed a small box one might get in a jewelry store. He pushed the box across the desk to Walter and said, "Open it."

Walter took the box and opened it. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but a round white wafer with a cross imprinted on its surface was not even close. He looked up at Arthur with the question written across his face.

"Take it out," Arthur said brusquely.

He understood then. Arthur thought he had been influenced by one of the vampires - Doru, Mihaela, perhaps even the white-haired one. Considering his own resolution to spend more time in church because of his doubts about his dealings with Doru, Walter could not fault the man.

He set the box down on his leg and removed his fingerless gloves before taking the wafer from the box and laying it in his open palm.

Nothing happened.

A tension went out of Arthur and he brought his hand out of his lap to lay a very large pistol down on his desk. He had apparently taken it out of the same drawer as the box. He picked up his glass, drained it, and refilled it.

"I had to know," he told Walter unapologetically and Walter nodded his understanding. If he _had_ been influenced, the Angel of Death was far too dangerous a weapon to be in someone else's hands.

Under the wafer lay a silver cross on a heavy silver chain. Walter turned the box to show Arthur its contents and said, "And this?"

"Put it on," Arthur said simply.

Walter took the cross and chain and clasped it around his neck, then pulled his collar out enough to drop it inside his shirt and out of sight. After that, and with the knowledge that Arthur had actually doubted him, Walter took his glass from the desk and drained it, letting the alcohol drop into the pit in his stomach that had opened with that realization.

Arthur had doubted him.

Arthur leaned across the desk and refilled Walter's glass. "So Richard was waiting for you in your room, was he?"

Walter nodded and turned the glass in his hands, watching the scotch swirl against its sides. "He thinks I killed Christian because I wanted to, not because I had to."

"I know," Arthur said. "We had a row about it last night." He took a swallow of scotch and pulled a face. "I believe you, Walter, but I also think you're getting too close to the vampires. You left out most of the day in your story. Where were you?"

Walter set the glass back down on the desk and sat ramrod straight in the chair. "I slept at Doru's house after he told me his story." He thought about giving a reason - Doru needed a guardian, he had been too tired to drive, he needed time to think after killing Christian. They were all true enough, but they did not touch the self-serving core of why he had slept there.

"I thought as much," Arthur said with a sigh. "Do you know what you're doing?"

Walter's lips twitched up in a hint of a grim smile. "I'm living beyond the pale, Sir Hellsing."

He saw the words sink in and he saw Arthur remember what he had told Walter just two days ago about living a conventional life. _We already live beyond the pale, my boy; I don't think that I can, in good conscience, demand that you live a more conventional private life than your professional life._

Walter had taken him at his word with a vengeance.

"Walter..." Arthur tried to think of something to say. _Are you barking mad? _or perhaps _I forbid it._ But Walter had just proved that he was still his own man and he had pointedly reminded him that he had given Walter permission to have unorthodox liaisons.

If he weren't so damned valuable...

And loyal and responsible and devoted to Hellsing, Arthur told himself. If he had followed his father, Abraham's, hard line on vampires, Walter would have killed Mihaela and Doru on sight. Arthur saw that he had brought this on himself and on his loyal servant.

"...I have an assignment for you," he finished and pushed the folder across the desk to him. "I want you to leave immediately."

•••

Walter sat in the Bentley he ordinarily used when on business for Hellsing with his forehead leaning against the steering wheel. His traveling case was firmly ensconced in the boot, he had cigarettes (thank God), and he had an assignment that should prove a little different from the usual search and destroy.

He should be happy.

He also had orders not to detour to London and Doru had not answered his telephone.

And Arthur had doubted him.

That cut more deeply than his wires ever could.

He sighed deeply and admonished himself to stop being so self-absorbed. Next he'd be mooning around like a girl in one of those Hollywood pictures. He straightened his shoulders, adjusted his tie, and got out of the car to stride to a bright red pillar box. He turned the envelope over in his hand and questioned whether it was a good idea to send it or not, but ultimately he dropped it through the slot and returned to the car.

•••

_Dear Doru,_

_I have been called away on business. I do not know how long I will be gone, but when I return, I wish to see you again._

_Please give my regards to Mihaela._

_Yours,  
Walter Dornez  
_


	20. All These Things That I've Done

Walter drove the Bentley up the long , graveled road, listening to the rough crackles of the stones under his tires. He could feel the growing alertness and anticipation that came with a new assignment, even one as unusual as this one. He was almost relieved to have business to take his mind off of personal matters.

Burford Priory was the home to The Society of the Salutation of our Lady. These were Anglican nuns who worked on the priory grounds and lived a life of religious contemplation. Frankly, Walter didn't understand the whole hierarchy of the arrangement, but he could understand giving one's life over to an ideal, so it didn't trouble him much to have an assignment here.

The priory itself was an impressive structure that had once been a private manor house and the nuns had done themselves proud in maintaining the grounds. He could see the angular topiary of the garden from the car as he drove, and the building itself was clearly well-maintained, although a bit schizophrenic in its architecture – a bit of this century, a bit of that century.

He left his car in the drive outside the main door and took a case from the front seat with him as he went to meet the woman waiting for him at the door.

"Mr. Dornez?" She wore a traditional wimple and habit, which made him expect to see an older woman's face peeking out of the severe headdress. Instead he saw a young woman who couldn't have been even thirty, plump rather than austere, freckled and pink rather than the cloistered pale or sun-baked brown he'd been expecting. .

He nodded and responded curtly, "Yes", noting her glance for the fingerless gloves he wore and the case he carried in his left hand. It was the size of two briefcases held together, with its opening at the top where the handle was, rather than on the side.

"I'm supposed to take you to the Father James." She turned to lead him inside before absently adding, "I'm Sister Emiliana."

He should probably know whether her name meant anything, but Walter was willing to admit to being a bad churchgoer. He had more than mere faith, he had truest solidity of belief, so he didn't always bother going to sit in a church. Of course, lately he had been thinking he needed to spend more time in church, and the unfamiliar chain and cross around his neck reminded him that Arthur thought so as well.

Arthur had certainly sent him to the right place, hadn't he?

Walter followed Sister Emilliana with his mood set in a grim focus. There was work to be done, and he could set aside his mess of a personal life to do what he was born for.

She led him to a small parlor, decorated in late-19th century furniture that showed that while the nuns might have taken vows of poverty, they had not given up all sense of aesthetics. The couch and matching chairs were upholstered in a rich green velvet that, paired with the dark wood on the walls, gave the room an unexpectedly masculine feel for being in the midst of a convent.

Waiting for Walter in one of the chairs was a tired looking man in a black cassock. He rose when Sister Emilliana showed Walter in and stepped forward to offer his hand. "Mr. Dornez, I'm Father Anthony Wright, I'm relieved you could come so quickly."

Walter took his hand and despite the man's apparent fatigue, found his grip firm when they shook. Father Wright looked to be in his late 40s, his short brown hair peppered with gray. He wasn't a tall man, barely coming up to Walter's shoulder, and had a pronounced pot belly, but his gaze was sharp, and his brown eyes seemed to see more of Walter than most people ever saw. Considering the man was one of the Anglican Church's few exorcists, Walter supposed that wasn't surprising.

He took the other chair that the father offered him, setting the case at his feet. "Sir Hellsing gave me the file, but I have to admit this isn't something I'm accustomed to handling. I've brought what you asked for and my orders are to offer you any assistance I can."

"No, I don't suppose you are," Father Wright mused. "But to tell the truth, this has gone rather beyond my experience as well. That's why I called on Sir Hellsing for his organization's resources."

He looked up at Sister Emilliana, who was still hovering in the doorway and gave her a tired smile. "Sister, would you bring another pot of coffee and something for Mr. Dornez to eat?"

She nodded and disappeared, apparently happy to have something to do. Father Wright looked apologetic. "I'd rather have tea, but coffee does a better job of keeping me awake. You may find you want it as well."

Walter bent and opened the case at his feet, withdrawing the file Arthur had given him and a heavy book bound in grainy, dark gray leather with no visible title on its spine or cover. The file went on his lap, the book he held out to Father Wright. "Sir Hellsing's orders are that this book must be in your hands or mine at all times. If you have to go to the toilet, you take it with you, if you sleep, you give it to me, if something happens to me, you are to hand-carry it to Hellsing and see it put directly into Sir Hellsing's hands."

The priest took the book and nodded grimly. Sir Hellsing was trusting him with the _Liber Ivonis_, and his precautions were sound with such a valuable and dangerous book of dark magic.

Walter wiped his hand on his pants after the book was out of his hands, though he was quite unaware of the action.

"What do you think to find in the book?" he asked.

"I have used up all the prayers, rituals, and wards that I know," Father Wright said, while he stared down at the book in his hands. "Nothing has worked. Every tool against evil has failed me. I thought this would be a relatively straight-forward, if large-scale, exorcism, but nothing has gone as expected."

Walter had read as much in the file, but these hastily-prepared dossiers rarely got all the details. "Father Wright, I would appreciate it if you would tell me everything you know about this incident. Start from the beginning and pretend I haven't read the case file."

"Right." The priest shook his head to himself and set the book down on the table in front of them. "As though you knew nothing."

He stood up and walked to the window to look out at the manicured lawn. "It almost looks like some sort of sickness among the sisters here. It started with Sister Catherine three months ago. She couldn't be roused for Matins. She was taken to hospital and no amount of testing could find any reason why she wasn't waking. After two months, Mother Superior had her brought back here where her sisters could care of her."

Walter nodded. This was in the case file. It was hardly anything that would make him think that an exorcist would be called in, or Hellsing for that matter.

"Then another sister fell ill. Sister Anne had been mentioning strange dreams to some of the other sisters. Dreams in which she saw Sister Catherine. Sister Anne said she always seemed so happy, she was with a man who was handsome and charming, and who wooed her like a princess. Sister Anne admitted that it made her so jealous it even affected her mood outside the dream. She grew withdrawn and irritable for days until suddenly her mood changed. When asked, she said her dreams had changed and now she had a dream suitor of her own. Two days later she didn't wake for Matins."

Sister Emilliana interrupted then, bringing a tray with coffee and sandwiches. She reached out to move the _Liber Ivonis_ but Walter was up and snatching it away before she could lay a hand on it. It truly was a dangerous book and he took Sir Arthur's admonitions about its safekeeping seriously.

She cast a reproachful look at him for his rudeness and set the tray down with a hard clink of silver and china. "Will there be anything else, Father?" she pointedly asked the priest, ignoring Walter.

"No, go on, Sister, I know you have your hands full," Father Wright said while he came to pour himself a cup of coffee and one for Walter without asking him. "I'll find you if there is anything else."

Walter took the coffee and added both cream and sugar to make the harsh brew more palatable. He had always been a tea man, but if it was hot and someone else had made it, he wasn't going to turn it away.

Sister Emilliana took her leave with a last baleful look for Walter and Father Wright picked up the thread of the story.

"After Sister Anne it was like dominos falling, one after another. Most of the sisters reported some kind of strange dreams, of handsome men, of angels, even of Jesus, and within a day or two, they had succumbed. Now we have twenty-three sleeping nuns, including the Mother Superior. Sister Emilliana is the last of her order who is still awake. Even the two men I brought with me have fallen in the last two nights. They also reported having dreams, though they were of women of surpassing beauty, and not of men or angels. I haven't slept in three days, Mr. Dornez, and I don't think I can hold out much longer."

"I don't understand," Walter said. "Were the dreams enough to call for an exorcist? Or was there anything else?"

Father Wright took a moment to take a long swallow from his cup of coffee, grimacing when he apparently burned his mouth. "Oh yes, it wasn't just the dreams and sleeping nuns that called me and my assistants. We came a week ago because of what the sisters were saying and _how_ they were saying it. A week ago the sisters all sat up in their beds and said, 'Only the Angel of Death can save me' then laid back down without another word or sign of waking. They still say it. Once a night they sit up and repeat their message. I have seen it and it is as eerie as sight as any I have seen in my life as an exorcist."

Walter froze with a sandwich halfway to his mouth and then set it back on the plate. "Father Wright," he said slowly, "Do you know what I am called?"

The priest nodded. "I have heard. If you can help the sisters and my assistants, then I will take help even from an Angel of Death."

Walter looked down at the cup of coffee in his hand and took a long, bitter swallow. "Tell me what I can do and I'll do it, but my expertise lies with things I can kill."

Father Wright picked up the _Liver Ivonis_ and looked down at the unembellished cover. His lips moved in a silent prayer before he opened the book and started to leaf through pages illuminated with drawings of horrors few human minds could encompass. He stopped on a page of a being that appeared to be eating both a screaming woman and itself at the same time. He stared for a moment before closing the cover.

"I have never read this book before. I had hoped, for the sake of my soul, that I would never have to, but there are supposed to be wards and bindings that might help us in our fight. Perhaps even one that will bring our invisible predator to a place where the Angel of Death can do his duty."

•••

"We can't trust him!" Richard nearly shouted, drawing frowns from some of the men around the long oval table. He slapped a folder down on the table and a photograph of Christian Wallace slid out on the gleaming wood.

"Walter Dornez has been a loyal servant of the Crown for many years," Sir Islands admonished. "He has risked life and soul more times than I care to count. We have ample reason to trust him. Your Mr. Wallace is – was – an unknown quantity. If Dornez says Wallace was conspiring with a vampire, I believe him."

At the far end of the table Arthur nodded, showing his approval for Islands' words.

Richard's lips peeled back from his teeth in a smile that was pure aggression. "You believe a man who is admittedly consorting with _two_ vampires? My father would never have allowed such a thing."

Arthur slammed a hand down on the table and shot to his feet. "Enough!" He glared down the table at his brother. _"Our _father chose me to lead Hellsing because he trusted me to do what was best for the people of England instead of following a personal agenda. And _I_ trust Walter Dornez with my life."

Richard faced down his younger brother with the members of the full Round Table between them and sneered. "Even our father sometimes made mistakes."

Between them some of the knights frowned.

Others nodded.


	21. These Changes Ain't Changin' Me

Walter left Father Wright alone to read and wrestle with the contents of the _Liber Ivonis._ He didn't envy the priest the work; the contents of the book were not meant for a man of God. While the priest worked, Walter took time to explore the priory from top to bottom, inside and out.

He started inside, having driven directly from his meeting with Arthur to Burford, barely two hours away from London. He would have to wait until the next day to explore the outside of the priory; the days were still short in February and it was only early evening.

There was plenty to explore before daylight, and Walter had no intention of sleeping yet. He would be no use to Father Wright if he fell into an unwaking sleep along with the nuns and the men the exorcist had brought as his assistants.

The manor that housed the Burford Priory had once been luxurious, but the sisters who lived there now had stripped away most of the luxuries in favor of utilitarianism. Starting with the first floor he searched under furniture, in drawers, in every cabinet and on and under every shelf. He flipped through books, half-amused that not all of them were religious texts or books pertaining to running the priory's house and gardens, but also included popular novels. It seemed the sisters had a fondness for Raymond Chandler. He tried to picture women sitting around in wimples and long habits reading about hard-boiled detectives and just couldn't quite get there without grinning.

He opened a pair of double doors and found that they led into the chapel, and that the chapel had been turned into an infirmary to accommodate all of the sleeping sisters and Father Wright's two assistants. Sister Emiliana was spooning something into the mouth of a sleeping sister who she held upright with expert care. Walter silently closed the doors and resolved to save the chapel for last. Vampires didn't frighten him, but he wasn't over-fond of irritable nuns.

The second floor contained living quarters. They were spartan, but not as austere as he had expected. His own quarters back at Hellsing were more ascetic than some of the rooms at the priory. Most of the sisters had some personal touches, whether they were pictures of family members, knitting that had been set aside and not picked up while its owner slept on, or even diaries that Walter felt voyeuristic reading, but which he still skimmed in the interest of thoroughness.

All he learned from the diaries was which sisters had ever had doubts about their calling, which were prone to private complaints about some of their fellow nuns, and in one case, that one wrote some surprisingly elegant poetry about devoting one's life to a higher purpose.

None of them described consorting with anything supernatural unless one wanted to include God, and Walter did not think the Almighty was behind the problems at the priory.

He was on his hands and knees looking under another bed when he heard someone ascending the stairs. He stood up, dusting off his trousers before stepping out in the hallway in time to frighten Sister Emiliana.

"Heavens!" She jumped back with a hand to her breast and her ruddy cheeks turning pinker. "What are you doing up here, Mr. Dornez?" As she collected herself, she seemed to remember that she was annoyed with him and gave him a quite professional glower.

"I'm searching the entire property for anything out of place," Walter said. He felt a twinge of guilt at intruding in these women's private lives, but reminded himself that this was all business.

"Father Wright's men already did that," Emiliana said accusingly. "So you don't need to be up here rummaging through our things again."

Walter shook his head. "Sister, I don't take pleasure in this, but Father Wright's men may have missed something. My specialty is somewhat different from theirs, so perhaps I will find something they overlooked."

"What is your specialty?"

Walter considered how best to answer that. "My specialty is killing anything supernatural that threatens British subjects." The problem being that so far here they hadn't found anything to kill. His specialty did not include things requiring exorcism, since typically they lacked a body to destroy.

"What use are you here then?" Sister Emiliana snapped.

Walter realized she was trembling and her cheeks had gone from pink to scarlet. She wasn't just startled or put out with him for snatching the book away earlier, she was furious.

He boggled at that realization for a moment while she stared at him waiting for a response.

"I—" he began and then stopped because he didn't have a glib answer for her question.

He shrugged and started over. "I don't know, but your people called for the Angel of Death, so I'm here."

He watched puzzlement cloud her expression, but it was better than anger.

"Are you really that angry with me about the book?" he asked and saw her puzzlement melt into embarrassment. It didn't make any difference in her blush, but her expression shifted and it was her turn to stammer.

"I—" She smoothed her hands down the front of her habit and looked away from his face. "I— don't know Mr. Dornez. I'm sorry. It's not you I'm angry at, it's all of this. I haven't slept for more than two or three minutes at a time in days… weeks? And when I do drift off I wake up in a panic that I... that I'm not going to wake up! There's no one who will stay here at night for fear of falling asleep and not waking like the others, and I'm the last one left now. Do you know what that's like? Am I next? I pray all the time and nothing has changed. There shouldn't be anywhere in all of England that's safer than here at the abbey, but it's not safe at all. What's the use?"

Walter was nonplussed, and had a brief, uncharitable thought that maybe this was why he was attracted to blokes. Doru was never going to pour out his feelings to him in some gushing torrent like this and so Walter would never have to try to work out how to respond to it without sounding like a dolt or a boor.

"No one is dead," he said, trying to reassure her. "If anyone needs to be worried, it's probably me, since they asked for me by name – sort of – and I'm not worried. Father Wright thinks there is something in the book I brought that will help."

He didn't name the _Liber Ivonis_, out of discretion. She would never have to know how close she had come to a book that was never really meant for good men. Father Wright was taking chances, but sometimes the ends had to justify the means.

"What were you doing up here?" he asked to get things back on track.

"I _live_ here," she said acerbically and Walter thought once again that she really wasn't what he expected in a nun. Weren't they supposed to be serene wielders of rulers, alternately praying and beating young people's knuckles?

He resolved to keep the testy woman well away from rulers.

"I needed to change clothes. After I get everyone fed I always have porridge in the worst places," she said, looking down at her habit and the flecks of porridge on her sleeves, chest, shoulder, and even a streak of it on her wimple. "And I shouldn't waste time. I don't like leaving them alone for too long."

"I meant to look around the chapel," Walter said. "I can go down now just in case someone starts choking or the like. I'll finish up here later."

Sister Emiliana's face lit up. "I'll have time for a real bath if you do that. Would you mind, terribly? Only it's been so long since I had time to really get clean instead of rushing."

Aha, Walter thought to himself, the way to her heart. So to speak.

"Of course," he assured her. "Take your time. I'll be in the chapel when you finish."

He left her while she thanked him, glad to see her mood finally shift from the apparent disliking she'd taken to him downstairs.

The chapel was much as he'd seen it when he had glanced in earlier – the pews were pushed against the walls to make room for two rows of beds that ran down the center of the chapel. The first four beds at the front of the chapel were hospital-style. After that they had apparently run out of hospital beds and settled the sleepers on folding cots. With the cots, twelve on each side of a center aisle, there were places for twenty-eight "patients." Twenty-five of the cots and beds were occupied, with the two cots closest to the chapel entrance holding two men Walter assumed were Father Wright's assistants.

At least he, Father Wright, and Sister Emiliana would each have a bed of their own if they succumbed, he thought wryly.

He walked down the center aisle toward the front of the large room and the two men turned their heads toward Walter, opening their eyes to stare vacantly at him.

"Walter," one murmured.

"Walter," said the other, sounding drugged with sleep.

Walter stopped in his tracks and frowned, fingers opening and closing while his gaze darted around the room, looking for something, someone – the puppet master for these two sleeping puppets. He shot a glance over his shoulder toward the double doors, but there was nothing behind him and the doors were still firmly closed.

They were alone – just Walter and twenty-five sleepers.

Because those two men were asleep, even with their eyes open and staring. He didn't see any light of awareness in their faces.

He approached the cots and knelt at the side of a blonde man in his mid- to late thirties. "Can you hear me?" he asked, while the man seemed to stare through him.

No response.

He snapped his fingers, shook the man, even pinched his earlobe, but he said nothing more. He repeated his attempts with the other, a man with a black hair and a lean, ascetic face, but got no more response from him than from the first.

Standing up, he brushed the wrinkles out of his trousers, sighed, and moved on to look at the rest of the sleepers.

The nearest of the sleeping nuns opened her eyes when he drew near and whispered, "Walter."

Looking back, he saw that the two priests had closed their eyes. He tried once more to communicate with the nun, kneeling by her side, talking to her, shaking her shoulder, pinching her earlobe, but the result was just as empty as with the two priests. He shook his head in disgust and irritation and rose to move on.

There was no one in the bed across the aisle from the first nun, but when he walked down the centre aisle toward the next two women, they both opened their eyes and repeated his name.

"Walter."

"Walter."

He continued down the centre aisle and for each of the next ten rows, the cots' and beds' occupants opened their eyes and spoke his name, closing their eyes and returning to sleep when he moved on to the next row.

When he reached the head of the chapel and turned to look back, all of the men and women were sleeping as though the strange scene had never played out. Each face was peaceful, some even had half-smiles, and all appeared to be dreaming, eyes tracking something behind their closed lids.

"Bollocks."

"Maybe," said a voice behind him that made him whirl to see Father Wright standing in the open door that must have led to the vestry. He looked as though he had aged twenty years in the hours since Walter had left him to read the Liber Ivonis. "But it's usually impolite to draw attention to it in a chapel."

He held the grimoire in his arms and seemed almost to be hugging it.

"Father Wright." Walter glanced back at the stubbornly sleeping nuns and priests before crossing to get a better look at the man's face. He looked gray and exhausted. "Did you find something?"

"I think so. Here, let me show you." He looked ready to set the book down on the lectern at the front of the chapel, but stopped short of setting a dark grimoire down in a spot usually reserved for the Bible.

He moved over to one of the displaced pews and settled down with a grunt of fatigue before opening the book to a page he had marked with an empty envelope. Phil of Phil's Plumbing could never have guessed what use his billing envelope would be put to.

"This is really only just a start," Father Wright said, putting his finger on a circle ringed with complicated sigils on the left hand page. "It's just to give us a little respite."

While Walter watched, the sigils seemed to writhe and his stomach started to twist. He looked away from the page to Father Wright's face and saw the man nod as though acknowledging that he felt the same way when looking at it.

"According to this," he tapped the right-hand page, "it's supposed to keep all evil beings out. All of them. Not just vampires or demons or whatever other supernatural entity might be haunting this place, but all. If the creature's intent is to harm, it cannot enter."

He rubbed his red-rimmed eyes and sighed. "I don't know if it will help them, but if it means that those of us who are here to help them could sleep without being the next victims, then it's a good start."

"If," Walter said dubiously. "What if whatever is doing this isn't _intending_ harm? And if it doesn't, then they've lost the last people who could help them."

Father Wright closed the book with a hard thump. "If you've got something better, I'd love to hear it, but Sister Emiliana and I are both ready to drop. I can't afford to test this and I need you, so I am going to ask her to be our test subject. If she is lost, you and I can keep working, and if she wakes, I will go next and be more useful after I get some real rest."

He set the _Liber Ivonis_ on his lap and gave Walter a challenging glare. "Unless you think you're going to find whatever our enemy is and kill it for me."

Walter held up his hands and shook his head. "This is your mission, Father. I'm here to support you."

He only wished he knew he could find whatever it was and kill it and then go home. He had personal business in London that he'd left for this.

"Then get me Emiliana."

•••

Emiliana agreed to the plan without argument. Walter thought that she looked so relieved at the thought of sleep that the risk of the plan simply wasn't important to her.

Together the three of them cleared tables in the dining hall to make enough space to draw a circle large enough for one of the empty cots. A smaller circle might have worked, Father Wright argued, but he didn't want to risk Emiliana stretching out in her sleep and breaking the circle's protection.

Father Wright didn't offer Emiliana a choice to back out. They all understood the reasoning, and if it was a bit cold, it was no less valid for that coldness.

Walter watched in silence as Father Wright used a mixture of salt from the kitchen and ash from the fireplace to draw the circle, leaving it unclosed while he drew its surrounding sigils. When it was complete except for the last couple of inches of broken circle, Father Wright handed Emiliana a knife and told her to get inside.

While he added enough salt and ash to close the circle, he repeated what he had told her and Walter when he outlined the plan. "The circle has to be closed with the blood of the person inside. That's why it can only protect one person at a time. Just a small cut will do, Emiliana."

He indicated four points around the circle corresponding to the points on a compass. "Put drops here, here, here, and here."

He essayed a tired smile that looked almost ghastly for the amount of effort it took. "Then get a good rest. I'll wake you in six hours."

Maybe, thought Walter.

•••

"Arthur, we've been around and around about this; your man can't be as important as you make him out to be."

"Hugh," Arthur sounded tired and more than a little angry. "Will it get through to you if I tell you a another time? Perhaps draw pictures? Walter Dornez is vital to the success of the Hellsing Organization's mission."

"Gentlemen, can't we find a way to agree about this without fighting?"

"Shut up, Shelby," both Hugh Islands and Arthur Hellsing snapped in unison.

Shelby Penwood's round face turned bright red, but the angry tension in the room let up.

"Listen," Arthur took a deep breath before opening his humidor to take out a cigar and turn it in fingers. "Even if we don't agree about Walter, we have to agree that Richard is trying to pull a coup here using what Walter did as leverage, and that it won't be good for Hellsing or for England if he succeeds."

He clipped the end off the cigar with a vicious click of the cigar cutter on his desk. "If we can't agree on that, there's no reason for any of us to be here."

"No, no." Hugh shook his head and took a cigarette case from his pocket. "You're right about that. I thought your brother was a snake back at Eton and that hasn't changed. If anything, I think he's gotten worse."

Shelby spoke up hesitantly. "I knew things weren't right when he rang me up to try to get me to agree to take his side the meeting tomorrow."

"And I thank you for warning me," Arthur said with a reassuring smile for the timid man. Sir Shelby Penwood might be a bit short on backbone, but he was a trustworthy friend, and those were apparently in short supply since his brother's homecoming.

"He didn't even bother ringing me," Hugh noted.

"I think he remembers you from Eton just as much as you remember him," Arthur said and actually grinned at his friend. "You didn't go easy on him."

"Why should I?" Hugh had been straitlaced and humorless even before he became Sir Hugh Islands. At times like this Arthur was actually grateful. "He was a liar and a cheat. Your father made the right decision when he chose you over him."

He lit his cigarette and blew out a blue stream of smoke before getting to the crux of their argument and the reason they were meeting in Arthur's study in the middle of the night. "The problem is ensuring that the rest of the Round Table does not doubt that. You have had to make some hard decisions in the course of doing your duty over the years and not all of them have been popular."

•••

She woke up.

After eight hours of uninterrupted sleep, Sister Emiliana woke, looked around the dining hall, blinking in the late morning light that streamed through the windows, and smiled like a child being presented with her favorite kind of candy.

Father Wright had tried to continue studying the _Liber Ivonis_ while she slept, but Walter had had to shake the man out of a light doze after a few hours and he had set the grimoire aside to walk around the priory to keep from falling asleep.

Walter had kept watch until the clock said it had been eight hours and then called Father Wright back to the dining hall to watch Sister Emiliana wake.

As soon as they were certain that she was awake and none the worse for wear, Father Wright broke the circle and hurried her out of its confines to take her place.

"Wake me in six - no, wake me in eight hours, then you can have a turn." He handed the grimoire to Walter and picked up the knife. "And don't break the circle if you think I'm having nightmares. After reading that, be more worried if I don't have nightmares."


	22. Break the Lock If It Don't Fit

"Is this really your job?" Sister Emiliana asked in a low tone, pitched to avoid disturbing Father Wright who slept restlessly nearby.

Eight hours of sleep had made a noticeable difference in her mood, but Walter had not expected that particular question.

"Yes." He nodded and went back to writing out his initial case notes. They were seated across from each other at one of the dining hall tables with a plate of sandwiches and a pot of coffee between them. Walter had thrown together the light lunch for them both while she watched over Father Wright and her other sleeping charges.

Between the rest and his willingness to do "women's work" without being asked, her earlier dislike seemed to have bled away. Now she was curious.

"How do you get a job like this?" she asked. "You don't pick up _The Times_ and see an advertisement: 'monster hunter needed, reply with qualifications and salary requirements'."

She paused, brow wrinkling a little and added, "Do you?"

Walter barked a surprised laugh and shook his head. "No. It's been in my family for... for as far back as my parents told me stories. My father, my grandfather, his father. I have trained for this from almost as soon as I could walk, in one way or another."

"Oh." Emiliana chewed on that for a moment before surprising him. "So... then... you were never really a child, were you?"

Walter set his pen down and frowned. Was everyone he met going to question his life from now on?

He decided that perhaps it was just that she was so used to communal living that these questions didn't seem overly forward to her.

"I suppose not," he admitted. "But my parents weren't your ordinary sorts either, so it all just seemed natural to me, and I do something important; I think it's all worth it." Lately, perhaps not _all_, but he was hardly going to discuss that with a virtual stranger.

"What about you? Did you answer an advertisement in _The Times_ looking for spiritually-minded women open for lifelong relationships with their savior?"

Emiliana shot him a look and said, "No. It was in _Brittania and Eve,_ actually, and I think it said something more like 'Large religious institution looking for ladies willing to wear frumpy frocks and listen to smart arse comments from young men,' so I had to jump right on and sign up."

Walter laughed again, surprised at her tart comeback and inclined his head to her in a small bow. "I stand corrected and I apologize."

Emiliana relented and even smiled again. "Accepted. As for the real story, I studied nursing. During the war, it was either lean on God or fall. When the war ended, I wanted a way to repay Him for holding me up, and this has been my calling."

"That explains how you've been able to take care of everyone," Walter made it almost more a question than a statement.

"I have been taking care of everyone because someone has to." She pushed a few stray strands of red hair back under her wimple and stood up, smoothing down her habit. "And I should go look after them now. Thank you for making sandwiches."

•••

After arguing with a freshly-awakened and determined Father Wright, Walter was taking a turn in the circle. Admittedly it was his first chance at sleep in more than a day and a half, but Walter felt that he could go on for another day if necessary.

It was only Father Wright's argument that there was nothing more Walter could do until he found something in the _Liber Ivonis_ that made him agree to trust to the circle's protection.

He had used a wire to draw a thin cut for the blood to close the circle and lay down on the cot under a light wool blanket, covering his face with his arm to block out the light from the bright overhead lights in the dining hall that were on for Sister Emiliana and Father Wright's sakes when they watched over Walter while he slept.

For the first time in years, Walter had trouble falling asleep. When he closed his eyes, he thought of the last bed he had slept in, and the company he had been in. All of his conflicting emotions bubbled to the surface - concern that he was somehow betraying Hellsing, his humanity, his faith in God, even the idea that he should only want women the way he wanted Doru.

And oh, how he wanted Doru. He could remember with perfect clarity every moment from when he lay in bed next to Doru trying to sleep to when he finally left Doru's home with his parting kiss still on his lips.

He touched the silver cross on the chain around his neck. Arthur had doubted him. Perhaps he was right to do so.

His thoughts chased themselves in circles until he finally drifted to sleep with the cross still in his hand.

•••

Walter pulled the heavy eiderdown up to his chin and reached his other hand behind himself to rest on Doru's hip. He had never realized that sharing a bed with someone else could be anything other than inconvenient, but it was so restful to feel Doru's weight behind him.

"Are you awake now?" Doru asked and pressed a light kiss to his shoulder.

"I suppose," Walter said reluctantly, still not opening his eyes or rolling over to face the vampire. "How long before I have to be back at Hellsing?"

"Long enough. As long as we need."

Walter half chuckled and finally, lazily, rolled over to look at Doru. "I couldn't take a long enough holiday for it to be long enough."

Doru had his head propped up on a hand and was smiling at Walter, fondness in his dark eyes. He brushed away hair that had escaped Walter's ponytail while he slept before kissing his forehead.

"Walter, you have made me very happy. If I could keep you here always, I would, but I know your duty comes first."

_Walter?_ Walter's smile faded. Calling him Walter just didn't sit right. Doru always called him Angel. It had frustrated him, but it had come to be an endearment.

Doru's expression flickered, going blank before his smile reappeared as though it had never been gone.

"Perhaps you would like a cigarette?"

Walter would almost always like a cigarette and it distracted him momentarily from his concern about being called by name. He pushed himself up to sitting and tried to remember where he had put his clothes, but he realized he couldn't even remember undressing or putting on the night shirt he always seemed to end up wearing at Doru's.

Doru interrupted his attempts to remember by holding out an open cigarette case to him. "You'll feel better after a cigarette and a cup of tea, hm?"

Walter absently took a cigarette and let Doru light it for him. Now where had he left his trousers? It wasn't as though he'd tossed them away in a moment of passion with Doru; he would at least remember the moment of passion, of that he was certain.

"Walter?"

There it was again, that wrongness - being called Walter, his clothes, how he had even gotten into this bed.

Suddenly he crushed out his cigarette on Doru's arm and slid out of bed, sweeping up a straight-back wooden chair and smashing it into the wall to break into smaller pieces, leaving him with a chair leg as a solid club.

Doru, however, didn't come after him. He was still in bed as though this sudden explosion of violence had never happened, watching Walter ruefully.

"What did it?" he asked, and Walter understood exactly what he was asking. _What gave me away?_

"Doru never calls me Walter." He hefted the chair leg and swung between attacking immediately or finding out how he'd come to be here in the first place. Pragmatically, he decided that he might not be able to get the information he needed if he killed this fake Doru.

"How did you get me here. What's your game?"

Doru slid off the opposite side of the bed, leaving Walter to try to keep his attention from wandering when he was confronted with the sight of his nudity. This was _not_ how he had wanted to see Doru like this. Particularly when this wasn't really Doru.

The false Doru pulled on a familiar fur-collared robe, never turning his back on Walter. While he tied its sash, he said, "I didn't hurt your Doru, you have my word. You chose this setting, not I."

"That's nothing but bilge and you know it," Walter snarled. "Tell me what you're doing before I shove this thing so far up your arse I can stir your brains with it."

"Walter, please, this isn't going to make things go more quickly. Put your anger aside for the moment and you will have all your answers." He held up his hands placatingly. "I have no intention of hurting you. I would never hurt you."

Walter put his back against the bedroom door and gestured with the chair leg. "Back against the wall. Don't make a move unless I tell you to."

Obligingly, "Doru" put his back to the wall and raised an eyebrow. "Anything else?"

"Yes," Walter snapped. "Enough with the disguise - take it off and tell me your name."

"I don't have a name, but I have been called Irdu lili in the past." He shrugged and in the moment between the raise and drop of his shoulders, his features changed entirely. He still had black hair, but it was close-cropped, his nose was still aquiline, but broader, his eyes were still dark, but in deep-set dark hollows. Somehow he looked utterly different from Doru, but still hinted at the vampire's same allure.

"It's just a name," he finished. "Just Irdu will do."

"What are you?" Walter breathed. He had never seen anything like that sudden transformation, though he knew of many creatures that were supposed to be able to change their form so easily.

"I am not a witch or a demon," Irdu replied. "If I tell you the name I am most often given, you will think things that are not true." He half-laughed. "Or at least have not been true since long before the time of Jesus."

"You're also not the milkman," Walter snapped. "Just tell me what you are."

Irdu let one word drop into the air between them. "Incubus."

Suddenly what he had said about Walter choosing the setting made sense. He remembered falling asleep in the Burford Priory dining hall with a head full of thoughts of Doru and what they had done in this bedroom.

He felt his cheeks burn.

"Wait! How did you get through the circle? It protected Sister Emiliana and Father Wright."

Irdu smiled ruefully, "That gets to the crux of what we needed to talk about. Are you sure you won't put that thing down and sit with me like a civilized being?"

"I'm not sure I don't want to see if killing you here will wake me up," Walter growled and shifted his grip on the chair leg. "Answer my questions."

Irdu sighed and folded his arms across his chest. "The circle has to be activated with human blood."

Walter frowned. "I used my blood to activate the circle."

Irdu nodded and looked at him expectantly.

"Oh no you don't," Walter said. "I'm human. I have a human mother and father. I eat, sleep, go out in daylight, cross running water, go to church, all the usual things."

"All the usual things?" Irdu asked, and for a moment Walter heard an echo of Doru's questioning. "Like dodging bullets and wielding a weapon that should have killed you when you first started learning to use it? Or resisting a vampire's attempt to snare you with its gaze? No, Walter, you aren't human. Mostly, yes, but not fully.

"If you were fully human, this dream would still have its hold on you and even the small detail of what name I called you wouldn't have been enough to rouse you."

"Then what am I supposed to be?" Walter asked, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "Am I a changeling swapped in the middle of the night while my parents slept?"

"Oh no," Irdu said, shaking his head. "Not at all. Your parents knew what you would be from the moment you were conceived."

Walter leapt across the bed before his mind had a chance to catch up to the surge of rage Irdu's words brought. He was going to slam the chair leg into the creature's lying mouth, he was going to-

The scene shifted.

Walter was sitting empty-handed in Doru's parlor, still panting with the anger that had propelled him into his attack. Irdu was sitting across from him on the couch with a cup of tea and a saucer in his hands.

"Incubus, Walter. It means dreams are my realm. Now have a cup of tea and we'll have our talk. When we're through here, you will wake and so will all the other sleepers, none the worse for wear."

Walter glared and stood up, but Irdu only took a sip from his cup.

"What are you doing to them?"

"They're dreaming and I am taking sips of energy from each of them. With that many sleeping minds, I can take enough energy to be very, very strong right now, Walter, but with just a sip from each, I harm none of them."

"Why?" he shouted the question and took a step toward the incubus. "Why them? And why did they call for me?"

"I needed you," Irdu said simply. "And I needed you away from Hellsing and your lover. Not that he was your lover when I started this, but I could see in your dreams that it was coming."

"Why? Why me?"

"Walter, please don't make me ask again. Just sit down. You're going to get all your answers without trying to shout me into compliance. I brought you here to give you answers to questions you only ask yourself in the grey moments before sleep."

Walter kicked over the table holding the tea service, but then he sat. In the back of his mind, he was still certain he was going to kill Irdu, but he could wait just a little longer.

"Talk," he said ingraciously.

Irdu nodded and began, "Humans are special creatures above all others in this world, they create without understanding how precious that gift is. They create without even knowing they have done so.

"What I am is a result of the human mind, the energy that it gives off even in the womb and which endures sometimes even after death. Beings like me were born when humans came together in sufficient numbers to have the rampant energy of their dreams coalesce into something more.

"I am incubus because I came from the energy of dreams of lust." Irdu's expression was turned inward, remembering some distant past. "There are others like me that came from dreams of fear or rage or even delight. There are more of us that spawn from rage and fear than from lust or delight. Your wars are fertile grounds.

"Usually these infant dream feeders die before they attain self-awareness, but sometimes... Sometimes they grow to be called demons, and while they never fell from Heaven, it may as well be true."

Walter found himself being drawn in to the story, despite his still simmering anger. Perhaps it was his time with Doru and Mihaela that left him more willing to hear the tale.

Irdu went on. "I have tried to find companionship with others of my kind, but it can be disastrous. What happens when a dream of lust combines with a dream of rage? I cannot do that to myself or to the humans whose minds host us. What we are without a human mind is as ephemeral as a morning breeze. I can travel like a thought, but it takes so much energy to affect the material world that it is something I only do on rare occasion."

"You said you feed on the energy from humans," Walter said. "If it takes that much energy, do you have to kill someone to affect the material world?"

Irdu shook his head, and Walter reflected that for a creature that claimed to be immaterial, it had a good grasp of human mannerisms.

"No," he said. "I don't have to. I have taken enough energy from the priory's sleepers that I can affect the material world now or go years without having to feed again, but I will get to that. Give me just a little more time."

Walter waved a hand at him to continue.

"I am old, Walter. How old I can't say exactly because it takes time to acquire self-awareness, but I remember Sumer and I remember its fall. Consider that if your vampire is lonely after just a few centuries, how lonely I grew.

"Eventually I conceived a plan. Another of my kind showed me the way. She found that if she took enough energy from humans, she could affect the world. I watched as she made love to a king and then took the seed from their intercourse to make love to the queen, adding a bit of his own energy to the seed and conceiving a child that had just the slightest touch of _other_ to its soul."

"Wait," Walter interjected. "Which was it, he or she? You said she made love to the king and then _he_ made love to the queen. Which was it?"

Irdu laughed. "We have no physical bodies of our own, why would it matter? I am male for you because that is what you are most comfortable with, and what you prefer. I would have been a woman for you if that would have eased your mind instead.

"You should have heard all of this from your parents, but they died too soon," Irdu said, his laughter fading away under a pall of sadness. "They were waiting for puberty, as their parents had waited, and their parents before them, going back centuries. Your family is usually long-lived, but war stole them away."

"What does my family have to do with any of this?" Walter asked, but suspicion gnawed at him that he knew where this was going.

"After Ardat Iili showed me the way I tried it myself. First experimentally, but eventually I conceived a plan to found a family line of my own. I was not created from violent lusts, but more tender yearnings. That informs the being that I am. I am what humans made me and I want to make my own mark on humankind."

"You're saying..." Walter couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence.

"You are one of mine," Irdu said, nodding. "As were your parents, and their parents and their parents' parents. Only in the past two hundred years have I been able to bring the lines together to beget children whose parents were both from my line, but the results have been beautiful."

"You've been breeding us like cows?" Walter found himself on his feet again, shouting his questions. "Don't we have any say in it?"

"Of course you do. I'm not a rapist. This is why your parents were supposed to tell you. On occasion some of the children have refused to accept my gifts, but it's an old tradition that has served the families well."

"How?" Walter started to pace the parlor, hands opening and closing into fists. "How has this served anyone but you?"

"Do you get sick? Have you ever had a cold or flu?" Irdu asked. "How old did your great-grandfather live to be? Do you remember stories of children in your family dying in the womb or in infancy? And you. Look at you. You fight supernatural creatures and you have only a few scars to show for it - most of those from shrapnel, not claws or teeth."

He pressed on. "Your family, all the bloodlines that carry my gift are strong. Your family has lived through plagues, through wars, through the perilous role of protector that your great-great-great-grandfather chose to expiate what he saw as a sin in conceiving a child with my help."

Walter stopped his pacing and turned to face Irdu. "Then what do you get out of it?"

"Hope." Irdu cocked his head and smiled. "Something to give my existence more meaning than living in dreams of lust and love, and the hope that eventually one of the children will be my true link to the waking world. I hope that one of the children will take all of my energy and use it to become something magnificent. I would sacrifice myself happily for that."

"And you want me to help you," Walter said slowly.

"Yes." Irdu nodded and stood up. "I had hoped that you would like one of the daughters of your generation, but I know that isn't to be. We can still work with it. One of the daughters has agreed to carry your child to continue the line, but she refuses to bear the stigma of an unwed mother. She will give the child up to you to raise."

He took a step toward Walter. "Think, Walter. I know you have regrets that you will not carry on your family name because of your... inclinations. You can have a child of your blood without ever having to touch a woman. It will be strong, healthy, and you can bring it up to continue the tradition of protecting the humans in your care. Your child will have a choice when the time comes as well. I will force nothing on you or any of your descendants."

Walter took a step back and shook his head. "You could have found a better way. Bringing me here after you victimized innocent men and women doesn't make me want to give you a damned thing."

"I needed you away from Hellsing, and I needed the energy. None of them are hurt." Irdu matched Walter's step back with a step forward. "When they wake they will be happy, rested, and warm in the knowledge that somehow, they are loved. Please, Walter."

"Hold it." Walter held up his hands to ward off Irdu's advance. "You can't just give me a long cock and bull story about how you're somehow my spiritual parent, grandparent, great-, great-, great-whatever, and then tell me it's time to have a baby. You might be old, but did you really think this was going to work? Even if I believed you and trusted you, I am _not_ ready to be a father."

"It needs to be now, Walter. I have the power to make it work now, I have a woman willing to bear the child _now_. She is nearby, would you be more likely to agree if you met her first?"

"No!" Walter shook his head and took another step back, bumping his back against the wall. "I do _not _want to meet her. This sounds like some story of arranged marriage where I meet my bride on the day of our wedding and we're supposed to live happily ever after. You can just bugger off with this tonight, let everyone out of your spell to show good faith, and piss off until I have time to think about this. I am _not_ doing this now."

"Walter-"

"No!" Walter surged forward and pushed Irdu back. "I don't _care_ what you want and I don't want you snooping around in my dreams. Get out!" He pushed again. "And wake up those nuns and priests or I will _never_ even think about saying yes!"

Irdu bowed his head and murmured, "As you wish," and the room dissolved into blackness.

•••

Walter sat up and swung his legs off the cot, breaking the circle in a long stride. He had just made it to the door out of the dining hall when he heard a commotion from the chapel.

In the chapel twenty-five men and women were sitting up in their cots and hospital beds, asking groggy questions and rubbing sleep from their eyes.

Emiliana was bustling among them, trying to reassure twenty-five increasingly agitated people until Father Wright's shout cut through the growing chaos and turned all eyes to him where he stood in the pulpit, the _Liber Ivonis_ clutched in his arms..

"Order! I want order here!"

In the quiet that descended, he issued orders, sending Sister Emiliana scurrying to assess those who had awakened, drafting his newly awakened assistants back into service since they had only been sleeping a few days, and sending Walter to the kitchen to make a large batch of soup to get everyone fed.

Within hours everything was bustling with a calm return to order and Walter settled in the parlor where he had first met with Father Wright.

"I was reading one of the rituals of banishment from the book," the priest was telling Walter excitedly. "And then everyone woke up. It really worked! I didn't expect any result. I was just rehearsing before trying the full ritual after you were awake, but just the words seemed to do it."

Walter nodded and lit a cigarette. He should tell the priest that it hadn't been anything he had done that had wakened everyone, but what was he going to say? _My semi-parent is an incubus who had everyone asleep just to bring me here to propose making a baby?_ No, that was not going to work, and worse, it would cast doubt on him when Arthur was already concerned.

The secret burned like a bubble of vitriol behind his sternum, but he kept it to himself and let Father Wright enjoy his sense of victory.

"Now that everything is in order, I can call Hellsing with my report and see what Sir Hellsing's next orders are."

•••

Arthur was unable to take Walter's first telephone call. The Round Table council room at Hellsing manor was filled with a full meeting of the Knights called not by one of their members, but by Richard Hellsing.

The meeting had gone on for three hours so far and the only progress seemed to be in the rising volume of the shouts and arguments from the thirteen gathered men.

Arthur had Sir Islands, Sir Penwood, Sir Davidson, and Sir Gunn firmly in his corner. Richard had Sir Ash, Sir Sykes, Sir Wilkinson, and Sir Lindsay on his side. That left Sir Collins, Sir Hall, and Sir Pike waffling in the middle.

The matter at hand wasn't merely Walter's killing of Christian Wallace. Richard had managed to turn the gathering into a referendum on Arthur's successes and failures leading Hellsing. He argued that the fact that Arthur allowed vampires like Doru and Mihaela to live in London and associate with his key hunter showed how far he had come from their father's mission to eradicate all vampires.

"Our father would never have chosen Arthur if he had known he would tolerate these _monsters' _existence in our capitol city! And he trusts a man who consorts with them. He trusts that man over his own brother. Over his father's teachings."

Richard thrust out a finger to point at his brother. "Arthur has failed Hellsing."

Arthur leapt to his feet and slammed his fist down on the table. "Under my watch the number of deaths in our controlled territory has gone down, even during the chaos of the war. I did that by knowing when to fight and when to leave things alone. Unlike my brother.

"Admit it," he snarled at Richard. "You're so eaten up with jealousy that you can't even think about what you would do if the Round Table gave you control of Hellsing. Who would hunt for you? Would you throw soldiers into the breach to die because you have a personal vendetta against my finest asset?"

He took a deep breath and asked in a low voice the men around the table had to strain to hear, "Why do you even want Hellsing now when you walked away years ago without once looking back? Where were you when our father died? Where were _you _during the war?"

•••

Arthur sounded tired when he returned Walter's call. He hadn't intended to tell Arthur about what had happened in his dream, but hearing the fatigue in his voice cemented his decision.

"Sir? The case is closed here. Father Wright is finished with the book, shall I return with it now?"

Arthur sighed audibly on the other end of the line and said, "No. No, things are... Richard is still rabble rousing about what happened with his man Wallace. I think it would be best if you went on holiday for a week or two. When was the last time you did that?"

Walter could answer that for him. He had never gone on holiday. There were always other things he could do instead.

"Sir, I wouldn't know where to go or what to do with myself," he protested.

"I own some property near Aberdeen. If you're looking for something to do, you can go up there and supervise getting it up to snuff, but I want you to take some time for yourself."

He interrupted as though he could see Walter opening his mouth to protest. "I _know _you don't know how to do that. I'll ship some books up there for you as well. Just-" He paused to try to frame his request. "Just go and take some time to think about what you want from your life and I'll take the time to teach our men that you can't be everywhere all the time."

"Sir-"

Arthur cut him off again. "Tell Father Wright I would be obliged if he would bring the book to us directly. Now get a pencil and paper and take down these directions. You'll need them to find the cottage."


	23. You Turned Out My Lights

Walter stared at the telephone receiver long after Arthur had hung up. He was trying to understand what was happening because it truly made no sense to him. Was making him take a holiday another way of suspending him?

He was shaken to the core. Too much had happened too quickly – Christian Wallace, the white-haired vampire, his new relationship with Doru, Arthur's testing him, the incubus and what it had told him about his heritage – whether he believed that or not – and now this. It was hard to believe it had truly been just a matter of days since all the dominos had started to fall when it felt as though some invisible hand had been stacking them all his life.

How was he supposed to manage this?

He stirred from his shock and fished a pound note from his pocket, placing it under the telephone as payment to the priory before he made another call.

He tapped his fingers impatiently on the tabletop next to the telephone while he listened to the phone ring and ring and—

"Hello?"

Walter let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Doru? Hello, it's Walter."

The pleasure in Doru's response made him smile despite himself. "Angel, I was just thinking about you. Your letter arrived in the post this morning."

"Did it?" Walter pictured Doru in his fur-trimmed robe picking up the envelope after it had dropped through his mail slot, moving unconsciously to avoid beams of sunlight that crept in along the edges of his dark curtains. "Did you give my regards to Mihaela?"

"Ah..." Doru paused, giving Walter a moment to worry that something had happened. "No. She decided that London was too dangerous. She called on an old friend for an escort and has gone on holiday to the continent."

"Oh. That's probably wise of her." He hated to ask, but he had to. "Have you thought about going with her?"

"I thought about it," Doru said. "But I am not trapped in a child's body, and I owe him a debt of pain."

Doru didn't need to specify who he meant by "him," Walter understood perfectly.

"Will you be returning to Hellsing?" Doru asked. "Your note did mention that you would like to see me again, and I share that sentiment."

Walter took out his cigarette case and spun it in his fingers. He had so much he wanted to tell Doru, but not on the phone.

"I'm going to Scotland for a week or two. Arthur wants me to take a holiday, whether I want to or not." He tapped the case hard on the table and took the plunge. "I know Aberdeen is a long trip from London, but if you wanted, I have a cottage all to myself. If you're feeling well enough, that is."

"Are you asking me on holiday with you, Angel?" Doru asked, sounding truly surprised.

"I don't know how much of a holiday Scotland in winter will be," Walter said. "But I _would _like to see you." He tapped the cigarette case hard enough for it to pop open and spill bits of tobacco on the table. "And I... think you are the only person I can talk to about some things that have happened."

"Say no more. I'll be there."

•••

Walter paced the length of the cottage's front room, cigarette in hand and eye on the clock. Doru was due to arrive at any time and he had already done everything he could to make the gray stone cottage feel welcoming, from a fire in the fireplace, to cleaning out all the cobwebs that had accumulated in the years it had stood empty.

It was hardly the coziest of holiday homes, but that came as no surprise, since Aberdeen and its environs were better known for stark granite than charming warmth. Outside the cold bit through heavy coats with sharp teeth that seemed to reach down to the bone and gnaw.

The crunch of tires on gravel outside sent his heart racing. He stubbed out the cigarette and caught himself dithering over whether to open the door directly or wait until Doru knocked – who was this Walter Dornez who dithered? No one he had known before, and he _hated_ it.

He growled at himself and pulled open the cottage door to see Doru unfolding from a car that looked almost too small to contain his lanky frame. Doru caught his eye and smiled broadly, sharp white teeth gleaming in the light streaming out the open door.

"Angel," he said, slamming the car door closed and striding out of the cold. "Couldn't you have chosen someplace warmer for a holiday? Perhaps the Mediterranean?"

"If I had had a choice—" Walter closed the door and turned to find Doru's arms suddenly around him, drawing him in for a kiss that cut off his response and shocked all other thoughts and concerns from his head while he raised his arms and fiercely clutched the vampire to him. He didn't care if the kiss tasted of blood and cigarettes, he didn't care that just days ago he would have perhaps tried to kill Doru for being so forward, he didn't care about anything except a brief moment of losing himself.

When they broke away, Walter laughed shakily and let his weight rest against Doru before he took a half-step back, straightening his waistcoat on reflex.

"As I was saying, this isn't so bad." He patted his pockets for his cigarette case to keep from reaching for Doru again. It was so hard to think when all the lusts and urges he'd kept so under control for all his life were now running rampant, free of their cages after one afternoon spent in the man's arms.

Doru took the hint to step away and turn to look around Walter's holiday home. The main room was furnished with a few heavy antique pieces, upholstered in a brown leather dark enough to be confused for black, the stone walls were plastered over and painted a muted tan, and the floor was layered in mismatched rugs meant to keep the cold from seeping in, not to contribute to the décor. Bookcases lined most of the walls, but were as likely to hold bits of seashell or gnarled wood as books. The two windows were small and would probably leave the room still dim in daylight. The kitchen was separated from the living room only by a bit of imagination and presumably the one other door out of the room led to the bedroom.

On the coffee table in front of the couch sat a small clear vial of blood. Doru looked from the vial to Walter and raised an eyebrow.

"Angel?"

Walter opened his cigarette case and closed it again without taking out a cigarette, then opened it again to look inside as though for some answer to Doru's question. He closed it again with a snap and met Doru's eyes.

"I need to ask you for a personal favor." He nodded to the vial on the table. "Tell me if that's human."

"Why—"

Walter cut him off. _"Please,_ just tell me if it's human and I'll explain everything after."

Doru took a seat on the couch and picked up the vial. He had lost all trace of the smile he had greeted Walter with, but he unscrewed the cap and raised it to his nose. Both of his eyebrows shot up and he looked to Walter, his face a question.

"Can you tell just by smell?" Walter asked, the cigarette case in his hands like an unlikely comfort object.

Doru shrugged and said "It _smells_ human enough. Do you mind if I taste?"

Walter pressed his lips in a thin line and gave him a curt nod. "Go on."

Doru raised the vial to his lips and closed his eyes as he poured the first drops onto his tongue. For a moment Walter remembered what Doru had looked like after he had rescued him from the white-haired vampire, when all pretense of humanity had been stripped and Doru the vampire had been laid bare for him.

He watched Doru's expression dissolve into something almost blissful and reminded himself that this man who was his lover was only wearing a human mask.

"Well?" he asked when Doru did not open his eyes or speak. "Is it human?"

Doru forced his eyes open and gave Walter a bare shake of his head. "No. Almost, but not quite, like the difference between dog and wolf."

Walter swallowed and let himself sink to the cushion next to Doru. "No?"

Doru's voice softened. "No, Angel, you are not human."

"You always said I wasn't," Walter said dully. "You must feel good to know you were right."

Doru put a hand over Walter's and squeezed.

"I'm not human," Walter said, trying it on for size. "I'm not human."

"No," Doru said again.

Walter stared at Doru's hand where it rested on his and took a deep breath. He could handle this, the first thing to do was to shove it all down, put it in a box where he put all the other things that could interfere with his life. It had worked until just recently with Doru.

In a dull monotone he started to tell Doru everything. He told him about the priory, the nuns, the _Liber Invonis_, and he told him about the incubus. He kept the descriptions detached, even when he described waking in bed with someone he had thought was Doru. He omitted nothing and tried to remember every possible detail because he never wanted to tell this story again.

He ended with Arthur's orders to come to Aberdeen because of Richard's actions against him.

Doru said nothing, offered no interruptions, and gave him exactly what he needed while he unburdened himself – contact without comment or judgment. When he finished, he looked expectantly at Doru, who gave away nothing with his expression.

"And now?" Doru asked softly. "Will you give it what it wants?"

"No!" Walter felt his cheeks burn. "No," he repeated more quietly. "Not—no."

"As you say," Doru said, much to Walter's frustration.

He realized he wanted something more than this calm. He wanted a fight. He wanted something to take his anger and helplessness out on. This creature, this incubus had turned his picture of himself and his family on its head and he could do nothing against it, Arthur had let him down, Richard was baying for his blood, and his normal reaction to threats would do him no good.

Doru set the vial back on the table with a tiny clink that broke into Walter's thoughts.

"Did you like it?" His tone had a more sarcastic edge to it than he'd intended, but Doru didn't react to it.

"Yes," he said, sounding suddenly husky and raw. "It was everything I had ever wondered at and so much more. A wonder."

Walter suddenly rose to his feet, taking Doru's hand to try to draw him up with him. He had one alternative to a fight with Doru to help drive away some of his rage for a time.

"Take me to bed."

•••

"Report, Bernadette."

Gerard Bernadette's voice sounded tinny with distance and Arthur could hear the sounds of laughter in the background. The man had called him from a pub. Why didn't that surprise him from a French mercenary?

"Two cars. One is Hellsing's. I can give you the license for the other, but I don't recognize it from your motor pool. The lights are on in the cottage. No one at the pub reports seeing your man yet, but he can't have gotten here more than five or six hours ago. I don't know when the other car arrived. We've only been in place for an hour and the car was here before us."

Arthur cursed under his breath. He had sent Walter far enough away that he had thought to keep him out of trouble and out of Richard's eye. Who would he have met in Scotland already to have them back to the house? Certainly it couldn't be that vampire, Walter would have had to have called him from Burford for him to have beaten Bernadette and his men there.

"Give me the numbers and I'll track them down," he said into the phone. "Call me when you have a local contact number and keep out of sight."

"If you don't mind my asking," Bernadette interrupted before Arthur could dismiss him. "Why do you spend so much money on a bunch of mercenaries to watch your man? We don't mind easy money, but I'm started to get embarrassed by how easy this money is. Maybe you should just hire a detective, no?"

"No," Arthur said decisively. "I'd feel bad if I got some detective killed. If something happens to you or your men, that's just the job for you."

He hung up on Bernadette before the man could say anything else. He was getting damned tired of being questioned by anyone or everyone. His father had been carved from cold stone, but no one had ever questioned Abraham van Helsing when he said something was necessary. Perhaps Richard was at least partly right about Arthur. He still believed that he was the right choice to lead Hellsing, but perhaps he had slid too far from his father's ideals.

Perhaps it was time to consider some changes for the sake of Hellsing's future.

•••

Richard sat in a parlor in a wing of the Hellsing manor far from Arthur's study. Behind the closed and locked door he and Donald Sykes sat swirling brandy in glass snifters and filling the air with cigarette smoke.

"Everything is going almost better than I could have hoped," Richard said to Sykes. Arthur had his cronies from Eton, but he wasn't the only one who had grown up among future Round Table members. Sir Donald Sykes looked like everything the British aristocracy wanted to be but rarely attained – he was tall, blond, blue-eyed, square-jawed, and almost a caricature of manly handsomeness.

It was a pity that the illusion of perfection was shattered when he began to speak. You were supposed to at least pretend you didn't think most of the population were still just peasants with illusions of freedom, but Sir Sykes could never be bothered.

Was it any surprise that he and Richard were, if not friends, allies?

"I'm still working on Collins and Hall," Sykes drawled. "Pike's a lost cause. He's gone soft in the head in his old age. His boy Peter should just poison him and have done with it."

"Once Hellsing is mine, we can invite Peter to make use of some of the more particular resources the organization has," Richard said. "The Round Table needs more new blood than just mine. I think Islands and Penwood are looking tired, and are Davidson and Gunn. Accidents happen all the time."

"What if the vote goes against you? You can't count on Collins and Hall realizing which side their bread is buttered on."

"If the vote goes against me, my brother is going to have to have an unfortunate accident. You just be ready to back me up."

Sykes frowned at his brandy and tossed it back before leaning toward Richard. "Tell me what you're going to do, Richard."

Richard shook his head. "Not yet."

Not yet. His backers said be patient. His backers said wait. His backers said Hellsing would be his, all he had to do was follow orders.

His backers had better not make him wait too long or he'd just have to act on his own and to hell with them.


	24. Drive Me Down the Pitch Black Road

Despite asking Doru to take him to bed, it was Walter who led him into the bedroom and drew the taller man into his arms. He had never realized that he could express anything with lust but lust, but pressed against Doru with his fingers twining in his lover's hair, he found he could put his frustration and anger into biting kisses and caresses that might have roused pained protests from a human lover.

Doru took it with not just stoicism but with passion. If Walter bit down on his lip hard enough to risk drawing blood, Doru's fingers dug into Walter's shoulders hard enough that the next morning he would see them stippled with finger pad bruises. If Walter jerked on his hair to pull his head back and expose Doru's throat to his perverse urge to bite a vampire, Doru in turn gripped his hips to hold him when he ground his growing erection against Walter's until Walter gave a protesting yip and stopped biting.

Their first time had been careful, considerate.

This was not their first time.

"Clothes," Walter panted when he did pull away. "Off."

Doru grinned wickedly and held up his hands. "Be my guest." Perhaps he was not panting because he did not need to breathe.

Walter made an incoherent noise of irritation and pounced on Doru's shirt, grabbing and pulling until buttons popped and practically leapt away from them to roll under the bed, the dresser, or to fetch up in a corner to be found in the morning or perhaps never.

Walter realized Doru was shaking. When he looked up, he was surprised to see him laughing silently. It broke the moment and Walter swung dizzily from his angry lust to...

...laughing.

He laughed helplessly and shook his head at himself before sliding his hands inside Doru's shirt and drawing their bodies together again.

"Better now, Angel?" Doru asked, sounding warm with his laughter but not mocking.

Walter shook his head again as he laughed and forced himself to take a deep breath and then another.

"I'm alright." He turned his head to kiss the side of Doru's throat. "I'll try not to ravish you so hard."

"Don't say that!" Doru protested. "I was quite enjoying the ravishing. You can't pretend to that kind of passion."

"But-"

"No," Doru cut him off firmly. "This is far too much talking. Do I have to do the ravishing?"

He took Walter's hand and very carefully, very cautiously, started to work one of his rings off of his finger.

Walter watched in frozen silence, all thought of laughter gone, but he allowed Doru to take the ring and set it on a nearby bookshelf, just as he allowed Doru to take the other nine rings in a moment that seemed removed from their earlier passion, removed from the laughter, removed even from time.

It was a gesture of trust beyond even allowing Doru's lips at his throat.

When Doru set the last ring aside with a barely audible click of metal on wood, he nodded to himself.

"I will not bite and you will not cut. Why should anything else be forbidden to us?"

Walter nodded and murmured, "I think I remember where we were." Then he remembered one more thing. He turned his back to Doru and pulled the cross Arthur had given him out of his shirt and took it off, shoving it into his pocket before turning back to Doru.

•••

Later, they lay in peaceful silence until Walter licked his lips and levered himself up enough to get his glass of water and wet his parched mouth.

Perhaps he would be walking a bit gingerly the next day. So what? It was worth it.

Doru rolled onto his side and propped his head up in a hand. "Feeling better now?"

"Best," Walter said, setting the glass aside to pick up his cigarette case. "You?"

"Likewise," Doru said, taking a cigarette when Walter offered and letting him light it. "Thank you."

The sweat started to dry on Walter's skin, leaving him chilled and reminding him that winter in Scotland was not the best to lie around naked and sweaty. With a groan, he pulled the blankets back and scooted under them, propping himself up against the headboard to finish his cigarette. Doru took a drag on his cigarette before joining Walter under the blankets with an arm around his shoulders.

"Maybe," Walter mused to himself, "this forced holiday of mine isn't so bad after all."

Doru laughed and kissed his bare shoulder. "Only maybe, Angel? I think I should be put out with you over just a maybe."

"Fine, fine." Walter set his cigarette in an ashtray (and gave thanks that Arthur smoked) and swung his legs off the bed - nature called. "This holiday isn't so bad after all. Especially if you stay with me more than just tonight."

Doru smiled and tugged on Walter's arm, pulling him back down to kiss his cheek before whispering in his ear, "Take your rings and put on some trousers on your way back. Someone is outside."

•••

Michel D'Ardier did not like Scotland. He did not particularly care for England, but he earnestly disliked Scotland. He also did not like the assignment Gerard Bernadette had taken for his mercenary company. Following one wiry git in a waistcoat around London and now up to Scotland was not why he had become a mercenary.

He had become a mercenary for action, adventure, and of course, a damn fine paycheque. Some people might say one out of three was not so bad in this case, but Michel was not one of those people. He was concerned he was losing his edge and then when they finally moved on from this waste of time contract, he would have found his instincts were not what they had once been.

He did not want to get himself killed just for one cushy contract.

Michel had likely been right about losing his edge. Gerard had told him to watch the cottage, not to approach it, not to get caught. He had staked out a nice little hill and settled in with a pair of binoculars, a thermos of coffee laced with a strong scotch, and several layers of the warmest clothes he could get his hands on.

It had not been his intention to get anywhere near the cottage, but what he had spotted through the open bedroom curtains had piqued his interest. He had no interest in two men doing the deed, but at the same time, he had never watched two men doing the deed and he thought it would make for a good story to be told to the other mercenaries when he got back to somewhere warm where the liquor flowed like water and the pretty women would sit in a man's lap for a bit of French-accented flattery.

While his mark and the other man had gotten down to the business of shagging each other senseless, Michel had crept closer, and if it had remained just the story of two men shagging each other senseless, Michel probably would have kept his distance.

But the red glow that filled the room when Doru let himself go drew Michel in like a moth to the flame. He had to know what was happening. He had to see for himself.

And holy Mother of God, when they climaxed, that growl rumbled out through the window and Michel found himself rooted to the spot. He had been shot at, stabbed, and once had a 90 year old Romanian woman throw a hatchet at petit Michel and miss his favorite body part by a hair's breadth, and he had never been as helplessly terrified as he was at that moment.

Who on God's earth fucked something that made a noise like that?

It took him longer than he wanted to admit to before he could pull himself together enough to try to make his way back to the hill where he had left his things. He was going to gather them up, get in the truck, go to the pub where Bernadette was waiting, and quit.

Then a hand fell on his shoulder and Michel D'Ardier pissed himself.

•••

Walter came out of the toilet wearing his rings and a pair of pants and bared his teeth in a silent snarl to see that Doru had left the room without him. He grabbed his shirt from the floor and hurried out to the living room in time to see Doru - fully clothed, nice trick - pulling a terrified man through the door.

He caught the man's pistol when Doru tossed it to him, automatically checked the chamber and the safety and leaned back to toss it into the bedroom to land on the pillows.

"Who's this then?" he asked, giving the man a hostile glare.

Doru shook the man, who shook his head and spoke in a rapid-fire stream of French.

"He says he's no one," Doru translated. "He's lying of course." He added something in French and the color drained from the man's face so quickly he swayed on his feet. "And he isn't just a voyeur, what kind of voyeur brings a gun to the show?"

Walter pulled his shirt on while he watched the stranger. Nice way to kill the afterglow, whoever you are.

"Do you speak English?" he asked, hoping the answer would be a yes. His French left a lot to be desired and definitely was not adequate for an interrogation.

Doru shook the man again and he nodded, answering in thickly accented English, "Yes. Don't let him hurt me. I'm done. Going home. No more trouble with me."

"What's your name?" Walter asked, glancing longingly back at the bedroom where his cigarette still burned in the ashtray.

"Michel. Michel D'Ardier and I didn't see anything. I just want to go."

Walter shook his head. "Doru, I think you can put him in a chair."

Doru shook his head and grinned toothily. "You don't want that, Angel. He's a bit... damp."

Walter's eyes slid down to see the spreading wetness in the man's crotch and made a face. "Fantastic. No, just hold on to him, then."

He turned his attention to the captive. "Right then, Michel. Here's how this goes. I ask you a question, you answer it, and we're all just three chums who had a bit of a misunderstanding, right?"

He waited for a reply, which came in greater detail than he could have expected.

"Right, yes." Michel looked over his shoulder where Doru loomed, his eyes once again a calm brown, his expression set in predatory amusement. "I'm not getting paid enough for this. I don't mind the thought of dying but not this. I work for Gerard Bernadette. He works for your boss, Arthur Hellsing. We're supposed to follow you, watch what you're doing, report back. That's all. We've been doing it for months."

Walter crossed the room in a blur and slapped the man, whipping his head around with the force of the blow. "You're lying!" he hissed.

Michel shook his head, looking dazed. His teeth were pink with blood, perhaps he'd cut his cheek on his teeth when Walter hit him. "I'm not. I know where Hellsing is. I know where you've been. We've watched you. We've seen you with him." He indicated Doru.

"And it's not worth it. I quit. I'll give you Gerard's number. Call him. Call the pub and ask for Gerard Bernadette. He's there with the others and when you know it's true, let me go!"

Walter looked at Doru who shrugged lightly as though to say it was Walter's decision.

"Give me the number."

He rang up the pub where Michel said he could reach Gerard Bernadette. The phone was answered by a woman with an accent so thick he gave up on trying to understand her and just asked for her to find Gerard Bernadette and get him on the phone.

After a few minutes of listening to an open line with pub sounds - glasses, laughter, shouts and conversation, a man with a cigarette-roughed voice got on the line. "Allo? Michel? Qu'est-ce qui se passe?"

"No, not Michel," Walter said coldly. "Walter Dornez. I have Michel here with me."

"Putain!" Gerard caught himself and sighed heavily into the phone. "Let him go, Mr. Dornez."

"Oh, I don't know that I should," Walter told the man on the phone. "Are you sure you want him? He's pissed himself and says he's not being paid enough."

"Let him go, Mr. Dornez. Let him go, call your Sir Hellsing and tell him the Wild Geese are through with their contract. I'm taking my men somewhere warmer."

Walter held the phone in his hand feeling an icy hand grip his vitals. He found his voice and said, "You do that, Mr. Bernadette. Take them somewhere far away. Perhaps Africa."

He hung up the phone and looked up at Doru; he could tell from his expression that he had heard everything.

"Let him go, Doru. I have another call to make."

While Doru pushed the shivering French mercenary out the door, Walter called Hellsing, waiting for the phone to ring through on Arthur's private line.

"Walter, is that you? Are you at the cottage now? I dare say it's in better shape than the manor house right now. Just go ahead and introduce yourself to the foreman on the renovations and he'll get you-"

"I know about the Wild Geese."

The silence stretched on the line before Arthur cleared his throat and said, "Walter, that was-"

Walter cut him off again. "I'm on holiday. I'll see you in two weeks. And sir?"

"Yes Walter?"

"Gerard Bernadette says they're flying somewhere warmer now. If you want to know what I'm doing from now on, you'll have to read my reports."

He hung up the phone and let Doru pull him into his arms.


	25. Maybe I'll Be the Lucky One

Walter opened his eyes to watery grey light seeping around the edges of the bedroom curtains. He could feel a weight behind him on the bed and knew without turning to look that Doru was lying there. This was the second time they had slept together and he thought he might almost get used to it.

Would he have time to?

He pushed that aside and slid out of bed. Doru was on his side facing away from Walter, legs drawn up to fit onto the bed. Sometimes it was hard being absurdly tall. Walter entertained a moment's speculation on what his coffin must look like - enormous - before he disappeared into the washroom to take care of calls of nature and to brush his teeth to kill the taste of morning breath and stale cigarettes.

He wasn't particularly surprised to be a bit sore, but in his life he had been more sore with less pleasure to show for it, and he judged it worth every twinge of discomfort. Still, it was good that the discomfort was minor as he was planning to track down the man supervising the renovations on Arthur's manor house and didn't want him taking one look at Walter's gait and knowing what he had been up to the night before.

When he returned to the bedroom, Doru had rolled to face the bathroom door. He looked tired and almost as cautious as he had looked when they had slept together before.

"Angel."

Walter slid back under the blankets and pressed a light kiss to Doru's lips. "Good morning."

The kiss melted most of the caution out of Doru's expression, which warmed Walter. When everything else was going to hell around him, Doru was becoming more and more someone he could turn to. He did not want to see Doru watching him as though waiting for him to turn on him or to turn away from him.

"Good morning." Doru drew Walter into his arms and kissed him again. "Are you feeling...?"

"I'm fine," Walter assured him. If the question was about his body after the night's activities, then it was an honest answer. If it was about anything else, it was a lie, but it was too early for dwelling on what he had learned about his heritage and his master; that could wait until after breakfast.

"You went out last night," he said instead.

Doru made a sound that was a cross between a laugh and a sigh and nodded. "Vampire hunter," he said as though to remind himself. "I thought you were asleep."

"Where did you go?" Walter asked, keeping his tone neutral to avoid sounding accusatory.

"The clouds cleared for a time," Doru said. "I went outside to see the stars and the moon. I am still a night dweller and I didn't want to disturb your rest."

"Ah." Yes, there was that about having a vampire as a lover, even if he could endure the sun. "Are you... do you..." Bloody hell, so much for keeping things simple until he had breakfast.. "Blood. Do you need blood?"

Doru smiled, despite looking even more tired. "Yes. I have left behind my normal resting place, I am awake during the day, and I have been through much recently. I will need blood soon, but you can trust me not to turn on you."

"I do trust you," Walter assured him. "I let you take my rings; I don't do that for anyone. Even when I've been in hospital I haven't let them take my rings." He pressed his forehead to Doru's. "How much do you take when you don't kill? You said before that you do that."

"How much?" Doru pulled back to see Walter's face, his own expression tight. "Not so much. Are you offering?"

"I don't know. Maybe." He ran a hand down Doru's bare side to rest on his hip, fingers brushing one of his buttocks. "I asked you to taste it for my own reasons. We're... close. I wouldn't offer to just anyone, but... probably. I mean, probably yes. I mean yes, just yes."

Walter grimaced at his own flailing through that line of thought. It would certainly never go down in the annals of smooth propositions made to one's lover.

Doru, however, only smiled more warmly and kissed Walter. "Later, Angel, after the sun goes down. I'm tired now. I can feel the sun like a weight pushing me into the earth and I want to rest. Go have some tea, smoke a cigarette, make your telephone calls, see your workmen if that is how you wish to spend your holiday. The days are short at this time of year, and I will come to you soon for your time and attention."

•••

Arthur was rather uncharacteristically intoxicated. He was not far enough gone to quite qualify as drunk to his mind, although Hugh Islands disagreed, but he was definitely intoxicated.

Three men were gathered in Arthur's study, Arthur with his feet up on his desk working his way through both a bottle of whiskey and the cigars in his humidor, Hugh Islands sitting ramrod straight in an overstuffed leather chair smoking those horrid French cigarettes he affected, and Shelby Penwood perched on the edge of the couch watching his two friends nervously. Usually they enjoyed their gatherings, but not today.

"You're pissed," Hugh said sourly. Arthur sometimes thought Hugh practiced that sour expression in the mirror, but he had been sour from their first introduction when they were just children, so perhaps he was being unfair. "And it's not even time for tea."

"Not pissed yet," Arthur disagreed, looking at the bottom of his whiskey glass and contemplating a refill. That would only be his third, or was it his fourth? Fifth? "But if a man can't get piss drunk when his brother's trying to stage a coup and he hears his most trusted man has been shagging a vampire, when can he get pissed?"

"Arthur..." This from Shelby. Sometimes Arthur thought Shelby looked like a sad guinea pig. In this case he did not think he was being unfair.

"Arthur, maybe what Hugh means to say is that you've had enough. What if Richard were to come in now? You'd just be giving him more ammunition."

"If my brother had any more ammunition, he could just put the gun to my head himself." Arthur said and decided that yes, he did need a refill, thank you very much. If it was good enough for Churchill, then by God, it was good enough for him. "Instead of getting you all to vote on it."

"Don't be melodramatic," Islands chided. "You know we won't shoot you if you're ousted."

Arthur gave him a long chilly look. "You should take lessons from Aubrey, tell me what I want to hear instead of pointing out that I won't be shot, just put under my brother's thumb or forced to go find something else to do with myself."

He thumped his tumbler down on his desk and watched whiskey slosh out onto the blotter and onto the folder holding the last report from Gerard Bernadette. The mercenary had dropped it off before he and his men left England for warmer climes. That was one thing to be said for mercenaries, he supposed - they moved fast.

"What will I do if he succeeds? What does a man who was raised to hunt monsters do with himself when that's gone?"

Hugh snorted and shook his head. "Arthur, this is why I didn't want you drinking. Listen to yourself. You're maudlin and self-pitying when you should be working on your counterattack. You should be on the phone with other Round Table members, you should be digging up information about Richard, you should be deciding what to do about your man Walter and his... poor decisions."

He stood up and went to pluck the whiskey bottle off of Arthur's desk. "You should _not_ be indulging yourself like this."

Arthur looked as though he was going to snatch the bottle back from Hugh, but after a moment, he settled back in his chair and sighed. "You're right. You know, I hate that about your sometimes, Hugh."

Hugh picked up Arthur's tumbler and took it and the bottle with him when he sat down again. "I know," he assured his old friend. "But you need me, and England needs you running Hellsing."

Arthur made a rude noise and crumpled an ammunition invoice to throw it at Hugh. He might have been drunk, but it still hit him in the forehead before bouncing away to roll under a table. "I wonder if you would be so icy if you were the one caught in a Cain and Abel drama."

Before Hugh could answer the question, Arthur murmured to himself. "Which am I? Am I Abel or Cain?"

Shelby answered, "Abel. You're Abel, Arthur."

Both Hugh and Arthur frowned at him as though they had forgotten he was in the room.

"Abel?" Arthur put his feet down turned his body toward Shelby. "You think I'm Abel?"

"Well, yes," Shelby stammered, and then apparently realizing the implication of what he had just said, he hurried to clarify. "I don't mean Richard is going to kill you. I mean you're the good son that Cain - Richard - is jealous of."

Arthur forced a laugh and scrubbed his face with his hands. "Then why has my mind been full of thoughts of killing my brother?"

•••

Richard put the folder back on the table and smiled. It was a smile full of teeth and very little real humor.

"One day you must tell me how you manage to work so quickly. I doubt my brother has had this report in his hands for more than a few hours."

Richard and his guest were enjoying an early evening meeting at Richard's favorite gentleman's club. No one would notice him because he would be doing them the same favor of not noticing them. He would not notice the prostitutes - female or male - that other members of the club might be entertaining. He would not notice the absinthe or the exotic smoke that might waft from a corner. It was the perfect venue to display one's vices and still stay invisible. Or to have a truly private meeting.

Across from him the portly blond man shook his head and said in German-accented English, "No. You don't need to know that."

Richard would have bristled, but a stare from his patron's bodyguard silenced him before he could say a thing. In all the years he had been dealing with the man who refused to give a name, he had never heard the bodyguard say a word. Perhaps he was mute. Given their dealings, that was probably a benefit.

"Right." Richard folded his hands across his knee. "Enough of that. Things are moving forward. With this information, I should be able to hamstring Arthur in front of the Round Table. They'll see that he can't even keep his most trusted man under control and that our father would never have tolerated this betrayal and the vote will have to swing my way. Once it does and I have replaced Arthur, I can see to having certain items in the Hellsing collection relocated for safekeeping. You will get your item, I will get Hellsing, and our arrangement will be concluded."

"Don't you want to know what we will do with the item?" the man asked.

"What do I care what you do with a corpse?" Richard asked contemptuously. "She was just a woman who was once part of a legend. _Once. _What I care about is whether you can trust your man to keep Walter busy up in Aberdeen. I don't want him back here muddying the waters with his kill record and family pedigree."

"We have contingency plans in Aberdeen," his patron assured him. "We are moving to provide him with distractions."

•••

By the time the sun had gone down in Aberdeen, Walter had been to the market, the butcher's the baker's, the tobacconist's, and the pub. He had made telephone calls and smoked most of a pack of cigarettes.

And he had spent far too much time thinking - in the car, in the shops, while listening to the phone ring until the person on the other end of the line picked up.

Eventually he had sat down on the lumpy couch in the front room and let himself sink into the unfamiliar luxury of doing nothing but thinking and smoking one cigarette after another. In that manner, the day passed, leaving Walter no happier.

He had just stretched out an arm to turn on a lamp when he heard movement from the bedroom. He fixed his attention on the darkened door while he listened to the rustle and creak of the bed and then the whisper of cloth on skin.

Doru emerged into the front room shirtless and still buttoning his trousers. For all his gloom, Walter felt something lighten at the sight of Doru with his long black hair falling forward over his shoulder and onto his chest while he looked down to avoid zipping himself in an uncomfortable place. He made Walter think of a drawing defined as much by gleaming white negative space as by pools and lines of black ink.

When Doru looked up and smiled, Walter found a smile to answer him with and patted the couch cushion next to him.

"Good morning."

Doru settled next to him and brushed a kiss on his cheek before replying. "Good evening."

A kiss on the cheek. Walter touched where Doru's lips had just been. It was real, this was all real. He had a vampire lover, he wasn't fully human, and his master didn't trust him.

Doru seemed to understand what was going through his head; he looked almost sympathetic, but not indulgent.

"Tell me what you did while I slept. You haven't been here all day, have you?"

"No," Walter shook his head. "I went to the shops, and rang Mickey Andrews, Arthur's foreman on the manor work. I had to talk to two of his brothers before I could talk to him. His mother took ill this morning and is in hospital. Until they get that sorted, the work has stopped."

"No work?" Doru said.

"No. No work. And I don't really know how to take a holiday, so I might wear a hole in the floor turning circles in this house."

Doru shook his head and chuckled silently. "Ah, Angel, what shall I do with you? Most men would be happy to have a holiday with a new lover. This is the time when infatuation burns hottest... among other things."

Walter grimaced. "I'm not infatuated."

"Oh?" Doru turned his body toward Walter, drawing a leg up onto the couch. "Then what are you?"

Walter rubbed his face and tugged uncomfortably on his ponytail before shaking his head. "I don't know, but I'm not infatuated. Schoolchildren are infatuated. So this is something else."

"Something else," Doru echoed. He tilted his head and seemed to taste the words before nodding. "Yes. You're right. This is something else."

Walter met his eyes and tried to read something from Doru's face. Were lovers supposed to know each other's thoughts? No, he didn't think sex bestowed some magical understanding, more the pity.

He nodded to himself. "Yes, something else. I don't think I would offer my blood to someone I'm only infatuated with."

Doru raised an eyebrow. "I thought you would change your mind. I wasn't going to press you on it."

"Do you really think I am the kind of man to make a serious offer and then withdraw it?" Walter asked while he unbuttoned a sleeve and began to roll it up. He smiled half-grimly when he saw Doru look down and watch his every movement.

"No, Angel, I have never taken you for frivolous," Doru replied, still looking down as Walter rolled back his sleeve to expose his forearm.

His skin was pale, although only by human standards. It was hard to consider oneself pale when side by side with Doru's perfect white skin. His forearm was corded in lean muscle, as befitted his rigorous training and weapons. The skin was crisscrossed with fine lines of scars from his earliest years of practice.

"I've never done this," he said quite unnecessarily. "Will it be enough if I make a cut here?"

"Yes." Doru sounded hoarse and he kept his eyes down, staring at Walter's arm as though he could see the blood moving through his veins.

Walter twitched a finger and held his arm up to Doru as a thin red line of blood welled up on his skin and began to run down his arm toward his elbow. Doru grasped his arm at wrist and elbow and licked away the blood before it could stain Walter's sleeve, then fastened his mouth over the cut.

He could feel Doru's tongue working the cut while he sucked Walter's blood out of it. It was an unsettling sensation and it ran counter to everything he had ever been taught. _Everything._ Here was a vampire latched onto him, drinking him, and instead of destroying him... he reached up with his free hand and petted Doru's hair. It didn't arouse him, the feeling of his lover sucking on his arm, but it did make him feel unaccountably tender toward Doru.

When Doru raised his face from Walter's arm, lips barely smudged with blood and eyes glowing red, it was Walter who pulled him in for a hard kiss.


	26. Everything We Know Is Wrong

A simple kiss can lead two new lovers interesting places, Walter mused several hours later as he propped himself against the headboard and lit a cigarette. Doru pulled the blankets higher for them both and smiled. "When did you start smoking?"

"Hm?" Walter set his lighter aside and blew out a stream of smoke, watching it swirl in the air. "When I was eleven, I think. All the soldiers smoked and I was just this wiry little kid who wanted them to take me seriously, so I started stealing fags and smoking 'nonchalantly' where people could see me."

Doru laughed and motioned for Walter to give him the cigarette. After taking a drag and handing it back, he asked, "Did it work?"

"No, but the habit stuck. It used to be my only vice." He traced a faint blue vein down Doru's arm with a fingertip. "Now I have you, so I suppose I have two vices."

"Am I a vice to you?" Doru asked with such forced casualness it nearly made Walter wince.

Walter glanced over at his face and shook his head as much at himself as Doru. "I don't know what you are to me besides important. A week ago I would have sworn that something like this would never happen - _could_ never happen. But now... I don't think star-crossed even begins to describe what we have."

"The monster hunter and the monster," Doru said sadly. "Who can say what fate will bring such star-crossed lovers?"

"Two weeks of this," Walter said. "Two weeks in which to be lovers. Two weeks for me to put things right in my head about everything." About being lover to a man and monster, about his parents and the incubus, about Christian Wallace and Arthur Hellsing. About everything.

"But not right now. Right now I want you to tell me a story. Tell me about you and Mihaela."

Doru sighed as though Walter had just made a difficult request. "If that is your wish. I did promise you I would."

Walter settled lower and pulled the blankets higher. He would always have to provide his own warmth in bed with Doru. What a strange thought, but then, everything about what he was doing with Doru was strange. He simply had no template for how a relationship that defied all convention was supposed to work.

"First, did you know that Mihaela and I are the same age?" Doru asked.

"No," Walter said. The thought was slightly jarring, even knowing what she and Doru both were.

"We are. Almost like twins. We were born on the same day in the same village in a country that no longer exist. The country has changed names and borders and rulers many times since she and I were born in 1743. Today it is called Czechoslovakia, and the name of the village exists only in her memory and mine, history books haven't even bothered recording it."

Doru sounded quietly bitter at that, but he went on. "We were raised together, and had she not been taken so young, doubtless we would have been married. She was my closest friend. We played secret games and told each other stories of the things that lurked in the mountains."

He smiled nostalgically for a moment and Walter, riveted, thought he saw a ghost of the child Doru had once been in that smile.

"We were heroes in our little stories. We would save our village and our whole country in just a single afternoon, armed with sticks, imagination, and God on our sides.

"Until the night Mihaela disappeared. I remember being wakened by my mother, demanding to know if I knew where she was, and I remember her mother wailing in the square when they gave up the search for her days later, certain that she had gone out in the night to relieve herself and been taken by an animal. We were six years old.

"She had been taken by an animal," Doru said and Walter could hear an ancient anger under the surface of his words. "But not a wolf or a bear. The vampire who took her... " He pressed his lips together and shook his head. "Do you remember the apology you offered her at the zoo?"

Walter nodded.

"Those kinds of men are her favorite prey for a reason."

"She told me he died in the last century."

Doru shook his head. "She lied. We killed him together, and I'm sure you can see why she didn't want to talk about it. But that comes a bit later.

"First came the years in which I thought my best friend was gone. I got on with my life. People died and that was a cold, hard fact. It still is, but I think children were lied to less about it then, or perhaps that is just my experience.

"When I was twelve, she came back to me one night. She traveled with the one who made her a vampire and they were nearby. She slipped away to find me. If I had done what I was raised to do, I should have told everyone and she would have been hunted down and killed. Her and the vampire who had taken her."

He shook his head, eyes focused on the distant past. "I couldn't do that. She was still exactly my best friend in every way, only she wasn't, she was pale and cold and alien and so sad. I wanted to help her, not hurt her. She said I couldn't, that I wasn't strong enough, but that there would come a time when I would be.

"I just wanted to be her hero. I kept her secret, and she would steal away to visit me when her sire would bring her near enough. I saw her again when I was fifteen, and then when I was seventeen, and then I didn't see her for nearly ten years."

"What about the rest of your life?" Walter asked. "Did you marry? Have children? Work?"

How strange to think of Doru doing such human things, but they were speaking of a time when Doru had had a heart that beat and blood that rushed in his veins like any other man's.

"No," Doru said with another shake of his head. "I didn't marry. Even then I preferred the company of men. If Mihaela had grown up with me, I would have married her and I think we would have both benefitted, but I doubt it would have produced children. As it was, as I grew up, I threw myself into the hunt. It brought meat and fur to my parents, but I was always honing my skills for other reasons, thinking of when Mihaela would come again needing my help. I knew in my heart that should would come again and I made a point to be 'too busy' for a wife and family. I would put my parents off with 'tomorrow, tomorrow,' and when tomorrow came, I would be gone on another hunt and I would stay gone in the mountains for days at a time.

"It was on one of those hunts, when I was twenty-six, that Mihaela found me again. I had grown into the man you see now, and she was still a child, only not. She did not speak like a child, she had endured things - and done things - that no child should even know existed.

"She needed my help. She had angered her sire by denying him a murder he demanded. He was going to kill her when he found her. I told her I would hide her, but no, she said he knew her blood and it would call to him. There could be no hiding, only attack."

Walter nodded his understanding. Such was often the way, and he had never been one for hiding. "You helped her?" he asked.

"Of course," Doru said, motioning for the cigarette again. Walter passed it over and lit another one for himself. "I never hesitated. Although, looking back, I wonder what I thought I would do after she was free of the one who had made her."

He shrugged and paused to finish the cigarette while he collected his thoughts for the rest of the tale. After he stubbed out the butt in the ashtray Walter offered, he went on.

"Ironic, really, how it was done. It wasn't ironic then, but it is now after what happened last week in London. It was my plan, since I knew the area intimately. I took her to a deep ravine I knew. There was a cave in its bottom where we hid her, and I took a high vantage with my bow.

"Mihaela made a fire at the cave mouth so I could see when he came. She said I was far enough away that I would be safe from detection, and I would have been if he had been traveling alone. Her sire came just as she said he would. When I saw him silhouetted against the fire, I shot him through the heart. It was the single best shot of my human life, but while I was focused on him, his newest plaything found me.

"He had made a new child to replace Mihaela and brought her along to see him dispose of her predecessor. It was probably supposed to be instructive. She came to the sound of the bowstring and if she hadn't been a newly-made vampire, I probably wouldn't have had any chance at all, but I heard the rustle of brush and crack of broken branches and drew my knife.

"She sprang on me from the darkness and it was all I could do to bring my bow up to hold her off. I remember being amazed at how strong she was, just before I fell backwards off my perch and tumbled down the ravine with her still on top of me."

His laugh was harsh and humorless. "I was led to my death by a little girl who was mad with what had been done with her." He paused and mused, "Do I mean the little girl who attacked me, or do I mean Mihaela?

"Mihaela had to tell me the rest, I was near death from the injuries I took in the fall. She says I was conscious when I reached the bottom, but I don't remember it. She killed the child before she could finish the job of killing me.

"It was Mihaela who made me a vampire. Sometimes she says she regrets it, sometimes she admits that's a lie. Sometimes she says all she regrets is that she will never have a body I will desire, either in age or sex. Sometimes she says that she hates me because I remember.

"We were together for eighty years, more or less, after that. We left our homeland behind and travelled as father and daughter or brother and sister. We eventually split up when she found a woman who would play the role of her mother. By that time I had fallen in love with London and stayed while she moved on. Our paths would cross from time to time, because just as her sire could find her, she could find me. In Paris, in Rome, more than once here in London. We would meet, spend time together, and part once again.

"Now we are old, old friends who love one another deeply, with a constant 'but' between us."

Walter cleared his throat. "What is the but?"

Doru half-smiled and closed his eyes. "But I hate her for making the choice for me."

•••

Richard left the club in the early hours of the morning with the folder with the report on Walter's Dornez's assignation with a vampire safely locked in his briefcase. He had rung up several Round Table members from the club and had appointments with them to discuss this newest information and how it reflected on Arthur's poor judgment and how far he had come from old Abraham's ideals of the only good monster being a dead monster.

His benefactor had assured him that Walter Dornez was going to be well and truly detained in Scotland, promising that some of his most trusted men were in position in Aberdeen to lead the butler a merry chase.

"Who knows, Herr Hellsing," the pudgy little man had said, "perhaps the butler will not survive to return to London at all."

Richard slid behind the wheel of the car he had borrowed from Hellsing's motor pool and started the drive back to Hellsing manor. He wondered what Arthur was doing. Was he consulting with his two cronies, Islands and Penwood? That Penwood was a useless lump, but Richard didn't underestimate Islands. Top marks at Eton and at Oxford after that, and his competent leadership of his family's business and political dealings made Hugh Islands more of a threat in Richard's mind than his own brother.

If someone was going to help guide Arthur through this and out the other side, it would probably be the current Sir Islands.

"But what about your man? The one managing things in Scotland." Richard had asked his patron. How he hated that gleaming smile he got in response; it almost wasn't human. "Didn't he kill one of your people in London? I thought you said you had plans for her, and the next thing I know you're telling me she's dead."

"Oh her? Yes, he was supposed to let our little sharpshooter live, but there are always casualties of war. She knew the risks when she volunteered."

Richard shook his head to himself as he navigated the sparse traffic through London and out of the city toward the estate. "She knew the risks," he parroted. "He thinks I don't know the risks, but I've taken steps and if he tries to make me as unimportant as her, he'll regret it."

He had all of it, documented from the start - when he had been contacted in Argentina, the money that helped fund some of his investments, their insistence that he take on Christian Wallace in Budapest and his eventual understanding of _why_ the young poof had been important to their plans - and lucky for them all that Wallace had actually been good at his job in the intervening years between his hiring and death - to their intervention with Arthur's right hand man, the mercenary's report, and their "contingency plans" in the unlikely event that the vote went against Richard.

He might come out looking the villain as well, but he would not go into ignominy alone.

Tomorrow he would cement his allies and weaken his enemies. Soon, Hellsing would be his.

If anyone ever asked Richard his opinion on the old Cain and Abel story, Richard would have been squarely on Cain's side. Just because one son was better at saying what he was supposed to did not make him better or more worthy. It just made him deserve a bloody rock to the head.

•••

Walter woke to the insistent sound of the phone ringing. Doru was lying on his side facing away from him and the room was murky with light filtered through the curtains.

He slid out of bed and winced as the cold hit his bare skin, but that didn't stop him from hurrying into the front room to stop the phone's damnable ringing. Didn't anyone know he was on holiday?

"Hello?"

The line crackled with empty phone noise before somone cleared his throat and spoke. "Hello? Is this Walter Dornez?"

"Yes," Walter said, glancing around for something to cover up with. Damn it was cold and his skin was quickly prickled with goose bumps. "This is he."

"Ah, Mr. Dornez. My name is Rolf Lieber. I got your number from Mickey Andrews. He won't be coming back to work on your renovations, his mother passed last night and his family needs him. I would like to meet with you later to go over Mickey's people's work and what you want done on the manor."

Walter had the phone stretched as far as the cord would allow and was doing his best to pull the top blanket off the bed with his toes. It was an exceedingly awkward position to be in when Rolf paused for him to respond.

He was just going to have to get the man off the phone and then he could duck back into bed with Doru for a bit longer.

"Ah, yes, thank you for calling Mr. Lieber. Why don't we meet at the site at..." he looked around for a clock - 7:20? That was definitely too early to be wakened on holiday. "Let's meet at 9:00. That should give us plenty of time to go over the property and discuss what will be needed."

After finishing their arrangements and hanging up, Walter practically ran back to the bedroom to slide back into the warm spot he had vacated with a sigh of blissful relief.

Doru rolled over and cracked an eye at him. "Duty calls?"

"Mmhm." Walter slid closer and let Doru wrap him in his arms. Doru might not make his own body heat, but he still retained some he had leeched from Walter while they slept, just as the sheets were still warm where he had been lying. "But I can pretend I'm on a real holiday for a while longer before I leave you to get your rest."

Doru smiled lazily and planted a light kiss on Walter's forehead. "You have to find time to rest too, Angel. How else am I to keep you up all night for the rest of your time away from London?"

Walter turned his face away to yawn widely. No, he certainly wasn't getting much sleep, was he?

"I'll get a nap later. I've gone with less during the war. Just don't get bored with me before we even leave Scotland."

Doru shook his head. "No, never. Who can say how much time we will have together? I will treasure what time we have. I fear it won't be as much as I would want."

Walter propped his head up on a hand and studied Doru's face. "Do you know that Mihaela told me not to break your heart?"

Doru smiled ruefully. "I think she has it backwards. The chances are much better that it is I who will break yours."


	27. White Blank Page

A week passed in Aberdeen just as it did in London and Rio and the rest of the world - one night at a time, with the moon waxing toward full in the night sky.. Walter used his working holiday to grow closer to Doru, to consider his place in the world as a homosexual, monster hunting, monster bedding, not-quite-human, not quite John Bull, and of course, to oversee the renovations on a building he didn't see Arthur Hellsing ever actually having use for.

Rolf Lieber turned out to be a short, broad, olive-skinned, black-haired, very hairy man with hands shaped like shovels and enough residual German accent to raise eyebrows. He told Walter that he and his family had left Germany even before war broke out.

"My father didn't trust that man," he said, meaning Hitler, "and we had family in Edinborough. I'm just here in Aberdeen as a favor."

Walter had no complaints about Rolf or the cousins he brought in to replace Mickey Andrews' men. To his eye, the Lieber extended family looked as though they had all been turned out of the same mold - sturdy, hairy men who spoke German among themselves and clammed up whenever an outsider approached. Rolf was clearly their spokesman. What mattered was that they picked up the work with all the attention to detail a meticulous butler could ask for.

Every morning after Doru had gone to sleep, Walter walked up to the manor to see the results of the prior day's work. Rolf was always there waiting to show him the progress his cousins had made since Walter's last inspection. He was always polite, but not warm, and Walter assumed that the man would be pleased when Walter returned to London.

After the morning inspection, and whatever errands needed to be conducted in daylight, Walter returned to the cottage, tidied any mess from the night before, and slipped into bed with Doru to sleep until sundown. Perhaps it wasn't the idyllic holiday others might wish for, but would they go to Aberdeen for one of those anyway?

On the afternoon of his seventh day at the cottage, Arthur Hellsing rang for Walter.

Walter stumbled out of bed, pulling one of the blankets with him to wrap himself, and answered the phone. Upon hearing Arthur's voice, he straightened and glanced guiltily back into the bedroom at the sleeping vampire.

The pleasantries were awkward and it was a relief when Arthur gave up on them and got the meat of the matter.

"The Round Table is meeting tonight," he informed Walter. "Richard has rabble roused enough that there's to be a vote to determine whether my father chose the wrong son to lead Hellsing.. Richard hasn't wasted time making his case."

Walter listened in silence. Surely the members of the Round Table were not such fools that they would throw away Arthur's successes for an unknown quantity in Richard.

Arthur popped that balloon of hope. "He somehow obtained a report of your activities with that vampire, Walter. It has reflected poorly on me and the tide of opinion was shifting in his favor. I have had to make promises to sway key votes back to me and you need to know about them."

Walter slowly sank into a chair and waited for the other shoe to drop.

"If you had just had a homosexual affair, I think they would have turned a blind eye. If you had an affair with a beautiful woman who was also a vampire, they might have overlooked it, but you don't do things by half measures, do you?"

Arthur sighed and Walter could hear the flick of a lighter before his master continued. "Your affair has to end. It has to end and Doru has to leave Great Britain altogether. If you care about that child vampire, tell her to leave as well. To counterbalance Richard's assertions that he would continue our father's work in ways I have not, I have had to promise that I will go back to old Abraham's ways - all vampires must be slain. My experiment with tolerance is seen as a failure, and you and your affair with a vampire are given as the proof of that."

Walter held himself utterly motionless, not even breathing. It felt as though even his heart had stopped beating while Arthur's words reverberated in his ears.

"Do you understand what I'm telling you, Walter?"

Walter found he was holding the telephone receiver so tightly his hand was starting to hurt. He loosened his grip and nodded, then realized Arthur couldn't see the gesture. He was going to say he understood what Arthur had said, but what came out of his mouth was, "I"m not human."

He had not thought he had decided whether he was going to tell Arthur that secret, but realized when he said it that it was meant as a plea that his relationship with Doru was not as outrageous as if he had been fully human. Surely it was more acceptable when he himself was partly inhuman.

Arthur could not make that mental leap and said, "I beg your pardon?"

Walter cleared his throat and said, "I'm not human, sir. Not fully. I found out in Burford." He gave Arthur a condensed version of the story of the incubus and felt at small stab of satisfaction at taking Arthur off guard as fully as Arthur had taken him.

Arthur was silent while he digested that information, then said sadly, "I'd almost rather you hadn't told me that." He did not elaborate, but went on. "Doru and Mihaela may have until the end of the month to settle any affairs they have here. That's the most I can offer. I expect you to return to Hellsing in one week."

Walter clenched his jaw, then said, "I understand."

"I'm-"

Walter cut Arthur off before he could offer an apology, if that was what he had intended to say. "Good-bye, sir."

He hung up before Arthur could say anything else and stared blankly at the telephone for several minutes before he got up to return to the bedroom. He stood by the bedside wrapped in a blanket watching Doru sleep. It wasn't the sleep of a living man - his eyelids did not flicker with dreams, he did not shift and twitch or kick the way a human sleeper might, he did not even breathe, but still Walter did not see a corpse sharing his bed.

Perhaps Arthur was right to make this decision. What kind of monster hunter could he be if he sympathized too much with the monsters?

Doru opened his eyes. "Am I that irresistible to look upon?"

Walter couldn't match his smile. He didn't feel like smiling, he felt like killing someone; he was not sure whom, perhaps Richard.

"Yes," he answered, pulling the blanket tighter around himself. "From the first time I saw you."

"Then come back to bed where you can see me up close," Doru suggested. "I can't sleep when I feel someone over me as you are. Call it a survival instinct that doesn't discriminate just because you are my lover."

Walter sat on the edge of the bed. "I need you awake, I have news."

Doru dropped his smile and sat up, letting the blanket slide away to leave his upper body bare. Even that sight wasn't enough to distract Walter.

"That was Arthur on the phone." He pressed his lips together in a thin line while he tried to work out how to tell Doru what he had just learned. "Hellsing is changing its policy of tolerance for vampires like you and Mihaela. You have to leave the country by the end of the month."

Doru's expression flashed with anger before settling into grim lines. "Why now?"

Walter shrugged. "His brother, us, the Round Table. If he's to keep control of Hellsing, he has to make this change. If he loses control of Hellsing, Richard will make the change and perhaps other, worse changes."

"Come with me."

Walter's face showed his shock at the suggestion, but Doru pressed on. "Come with me, Angel. First it's us, but what of you? If you tell him that you aren't fully human, will he expel you next?"

"I told him already." Walter drew his fingertips over his forehead and frowned deeply. "He said he would rather I hadn't."

"See." Doru leaned forward and grasped Walter's bicep. "He has already proved he doesn't trust you. And for what? Do you lie to him? Do you conceal? Has your service ever been anything but impeccable? You even keep working for him while you're here as a punishment for saving your own life as well as mine."

Walter opened his mouth to protest that this wasn't a punishment, but Doru squeezed his arm and cut him off. "This is a punishment for killing his brother's man, otherwise you would still be at Hellsing and in his good graces. You are more loyal than your master, Angel."

Walter pulled his arm out of Doru's grasp. "It's what I have. It's what I've always had."

Doru's disappointment was obvious as he dropped his hand back to the blanket. "What of me?"

Walter shook his head, keeping his eyes on Doru instead of letting his gaze slide away to find his cigarettes. In this, Doru deserved his full attention. "Which do I give up? You? Or my life's work and my family's legacy?"

He sighed and took Doru's hand between both of his. "Forgive me 'this inconstancy' and let me speak with Arthur when I return to Hellsing. I can't toss aside my service to Hellsing, but I can't throw aside what we have been building either."

His smile was wan, but at least he _was _smiling."I think you have ruined me for any other man."

Doru's answering smile was bleak. "I could say the same of you, Angel. You and your 'inconstancy'. You could not love me so much, loved you not honour more."

Walter nodded, but he was pleased Doru had understood his reference to Richard Lovelace's poem, _To Lucasta, On Going to the Wars._ Perhaps he should not have been so pleased.

"Do you love me, then?"

That would teach him to flaunt his literacy.

He dropped his eyes to their hands, his pink with blood and warmth, Doru's hand pale and white clasped between them.

"That depends," he said slowly, "on whether you believe that love comes so quickly. It might be that this is love; you challenge all my notions of love and whether I could have it with a man."

Doru made a dry sound that might have been an attempt at a laugh and pulled on Walter's hand, encouraging him to join him fully on the bed.

"If you knew how much you have challenged my notions, you would be rendered speechless. You offer Lovelace to me; let me counter with Shakespeare. 'What we do determine oft we break. Purpose is but the slave to memory. Of violent birth but poor validity.'"

He put his arm over Walter's shoulders and drew him in close. "Do what you must, Angel. I will forgive you anything, only do the same for me."

Much later Walter would find the Player King's speech from _Hamlet _and, after reading and digesting the text, would drop the book in the fire and walk away.

•••

While Walter and Doru slept the rest of the day away, leaving questions of honour, loyalty, and love for later, Arthur prepared himself for the Round Table's convocation. Whether he had promises of votes in his favor or not, he could not help his nerves. Politics came with no guarantees other than the promise of human duplicity.

Hugh and Aubrey helped him in Walter's absence. Arthur suspected the staff would rather have Walter back, bloody habits and all, rather than have to deal with Hugh Islands' icy oversight, but, by the time the other members of the Round Table began arriving, the meeting room was spotless, refreshments were waiting, and Arthur had nothing more to do than sit in his seat at the head of the table and wait.

Richard arrived with Donald Sykes and took a seat at the far end of the table from his brother. Richard looked so relaxed Arthur wanted to hit him in the face with a cricket bat the way he had when he had been twelve and Richard fourteen. The memory brought a smile to his lips that made Richard frown, which only made Arthur smile more. Some things never change.

When the twelve members were assembled, Hugh stood to call the meeting to order before Sir Sykes could take charge. Richard and Sykes exchanged murmured complaints, but, as Arthur and Hugh had surmised when they formulated their strategy, they did not want to draw negative attention by protesting the point of order.

Arthur leaned his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers while he watched and waited, still smiling even thought he was silently exhorting Hugh to _hurry, hurry!_ The waiting made him want to pull his pistol and simply shoot Richard to put an end to this spectacle.

From his brother's expression, he rather thought Richard shared his thoughts.

"We are assembled at the _strenuous_ request of Mr. Richard Hellsing," Hugh began, putting disapproving weight on strenuous, "who contends that his father erred in selecting his younger brother, Sir Arthur Hellsing as his heir. We have agreed, as a body, to address Mr. Hellsing's concerns and either reaffirm his father's decision, or overturn Abraham van Helsing's choice of Arthur Hellsing as his successor.

"I request a show of hands as to whether we should allow Mr. Hellsing and Sir Hellsing to address us with their arguments-"

"Again," murmured Aubrey on cue, loudly enough for many of the assembled knights to hear him and nod. All of the knights had had to listen to the arguments for and against the status quo from the warring brothers. Arthur and Hugh had judged that they would be in favor of just getting the vote over with if they were nudged properly.

"-or whether we should move on to the vote immediately," Hugh went on as though Aubrey's scripted interruption had not happened. "Those in favor of an immediate vote, raise your hands."

Hugh waited until Sir Collins raised his hand, slowly followed by Pike and Davidson before he raised his hand, which was the signal to Aubrey to raise his hand, followed by the former fence-sitter Sir Collins. With six knights in favor of an immediate vote, Arthur raised his hand to push it over to a simple majority. He gave his brother a smile that was meant to be mild but was still razor-sharp around the edges.

Hugh was as bland as ever. "Seven in favor of an immediate vote. So noted and we will move forward immediately. By a show of hands, those in favor of Sir Arthur Hellsing maintaining leadership of the Hellsing Organization as selected by its founder, Abraham van Helsing?"

Arthur made a point of folding his hands in his lap while Hugh, Aubrey, Sir Collins, Pike, Davidson, Hall, and Ash raised their hands. Despite his earlier concerns regarding some of the knights who had agreed to vote for him after he made his concessions about all vampires in Great Britain, he didn't survey the table to see who had voted in his favor; he watched Richard's expression like a hawk while his brother saw some of his supporters jump ship.

He was so gratified at the slowly mounting fury in Richard's expression that it surely qualified as a sin of some sort, a moral lapse at the very least.

Hugh ignored Richard while he surveyed the table. "Seven votes in favor of Sir Hellsing. Those in favor of Richard Hellsing taking leadership of the Hellsing organization?"

Sir Sykes raised his hand straight away, followed by Wilkinson and Lindsay and a surprise defection from Edmund Gunn.

Hugh noted that just as blandly and said, "Four votes in favor of Richard Hellsing. Sir Hellsing will retain control of the Hellsing Organization."

Arthur rose to his feet, ready to offer a few words of conciliation, not for Richard, but for the men he had to work with, but Richard interrupted him by standing abruptly and leaving the room.

Arthur watched him go, then turned a charming smile on the assembled knights. "You should see him lose at poker," he joked, earning chuckles from around the table.

"Now that we have that settled," he began, "I want to assure you all that I have taken your concerns very seriously and will-"

A howl broke through his words followed by the chatter of automatic weapon fire. .

•••

Walter surveyed the chess board before moving a pawn. So far he had beaten Doru at chess once out of the seven or eight times they had played, and he wasn't entirely certain Doru hadn't _let_ him win that game. He just wasn't as good at taking the long view as the vampire.

Doru tsked and reached for a knight when the telephone broke the quiet with a harsh ring.

Walter muttered a curse and stood up. "No cheating while I'm up," he admonished on his way to the phone.

Doru smiled and completed his move. "Perish the thought," he murmured before he tilted his head to look out the window at the rising full moon. "Would I cheat you?"

Walter snorted and picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Walter, just listen." It was Arthur, and his tone broke Walter's mood in an instant. "We're under attack here. I need you here _now_. Commandeer a helicopter or a plane and get here. We're in the Round Table chamber and locked down, but the men are dying and I don't know how long they'll last."

"Who's attacking?" Walter asked, seeing Doru's attention snap back from his moongazing to Walter.

"I don't know," Arthur admitted. "But they aren't human. We heard howls before we locked things down in here. Just get here, and get here now!"

"I'm coming."

Walter dropped the phone in the receiver and snatched up his car keys. "I have to go. Hellsing's under attack."

Doru rose and strode for the door. "I'm coming with you."

Rather than argue, Walter pulled the door open; they could talk about it on the way to the airport.

Outside, a chorus of howls cut through the night.

* * *

_AN: You can find the full text that Doru quotes in my ff net profile, just click "DreadNot" to read it. It's from Hamlet, the Player King's speech. I had to memorize it in high school and it has always stuck in my head. Since it fit here, I used it. Also, while I may speak disparagingly of Aberdeen in this fic, I lived there when I was a kid, and I remember it so very fondly._


	28. Show Me Your Teeth

Walter searched the silver-lit landscape for the source of the howls. Arthur had said he heard howls at the start of the attack at Hellsing; it could hardly be a coincidence that Walter was confronted with howls as he tried to leave to get back to London. He tucked the keys in his pocket and shook out a handful of wire to try to catch that first shadow when Doru jerked him by the back of his waistcoat, pulling him out of the doorway in time to slam the door closed.

A bullet punched through the thick wood where Walter's head would have been.

"Sniper." Doru's eyes were shading to an angry red.

There were crashes from around the house, the sounds of breaking glass. A dark form landed on the rug in the front room and immediately launched itself at Walter and Doru.

Walter hesitated, not wanting to cut into Doru, and it was Doru who batted the thing aside with a powerful blow that tossed it into a wall with a hard thud that left it dazed for the space of an indrawn breath.

Walter had time to register what he was seeing, although it was unlike anything he had seen before - humanlike, but hunched as though not really designed to walk upright on two legs, its stubby fingers ended in claws better suited for gouging than cutting or tearing. Its unclothed body was covered in patchy, coarse, black hair. Where skin showed through the patches of hair, it wept clear fluid as though traumatized by whatever change had taken a man and made it into this _thing._

It was the face, though, that was most disturbing, with a man's eyes glaring hatefully out of a face had been pulled into a mockery of a muzzle, its mouth filled with a confused mixture of rending fangs and human teeth.

If some demented child god had been given the power to squeeze a wolf and a man together like modeling clay, perhaps this would have been the result.

Walter took it in during the instant that the creature was dazed, then another followed the first in through the broken window and two more ran in from the kitchen and bedroom.

"Those two," Walter said urgently, pushing Doru toward the one he had already hit and the one that had followed it into the room. It was all he had time to say before the werewolves - if that was what they were - were upon them.

He lashed the wires he had already dropped from his rings, using them like a cutting whip against the creature in the lead. There was a surprising amount of resistance when he jerked the wires tight, but a second harder jerk sent his attacker flying in pieces that spun away from the wires like only so much butchered meat.

The other creature drove its full body weight into him, sending him crashing back against the wall and driving his breath out in a whoosh. He slammed the heel of his hand upward to snap its jaw closed before it could bite him and slapped his other hand down on its side, under its upraised arm. He released enough wire with the slap to wrap its upper body, then he jerked his hand away.

The creature split in half, its legs giving out and falling under Walter's feet, its upper body still tried to grab for him to claw or bite even when Walter shoved it away from him to fall to the floor several feet away.

He spat in disgust and whipped wire around its neck to sever its head, then turned in time to see Doru plunging his hand into the last surviving creature's chest. No, not into - _through._ His hand exploded out of the creature's back, and if he had grasped its heart, what remained of it was little more than shredded meat now.

He had dealt with the fourth creature while Walter was busy dispatching his two. It lay crumpled against the wall with its head hanging on by a tenuous bit of flesh and tendons.

While Walter watched, he pulled the curtain over the shattered window. "I can hear more out there, and at least one has to be the sniper. Stay away from the windows."

Walter surveyed the carnage. It had been less than a minute since the sniper's bullet had hit the door.

"Werewolves?"

Doru looked at the bodies and shook his head. "I haven't seen one in a century, but it didn't look like that. They make me think of ghouls. If a werewolf could make a ghoul, they might look like these things."

"Wereghouls?"

Doru snorted a laugh and shrugged. "Near enough."

The creatures might not have been werewolves, but now that they were dead, they were twisting and changing, losing the hair and claws, the faces wrenching back to human.

Walter recognized Rolf Lieber's face on the one Doru had torn the heart out of. The other two that were at least somewhat intact looked to be Rolf's "cousins."

Walter didn't have time to digest that information as another chorus of howls rose outside. It sounded as though they were coordinating a fresh attack, signalling to one another. If all of Rolf's ersatz family were creatures like these, he could expect another half dozen attackers at least.

"They're coming again."

"Yes." Doru absently licked blood off his fingers and then said, "I'm going for the sniper. I trust you can manage anything else they send at you."

"Go."

Doru flashed him a smile and in an instant had thrown himself through the broken kitchen window and into the night.

He heard the rifle crack again and ruthlessly quashed any concern for Doru. He heard something thump on the floor in the kitchen and reacted instantly the sight of a grenade bouncing toward the front room..

He dove through the broken front window and received an extra boost from the concussion of the grenade's explosion, rolling on his shoulder and bounding up to take cover against the Bentley in case Doru hadn't taken out the sniper yet.

More of the wereghouls - he thought the term would stick - ran at him, rounding both sides of the cottage. In the back of his mind he hoped Doru would be smart enough to get out of the way as Walter rose from cover and sent a whirlwind of wire to ravage the pack before they could draw near.

The carnage was nearly instantaneous, turning monsters to meat in a blink. Walter heard a howl behind him cut off to a yelp of pain before Doru was once again standing at his side.

Walter looked toward the cottage in time for a second explosion to nearly knock him off his feet. Doru steadied him and they watched flames lick out of the broken window.

"Gas line?"

"Probably." Walter looked around for any further movements in the night. The fire made shadows dance all around him, but nothing large moved while he scanned around them.

"There were two snipers," Doru informed him. "I took care of them and one other that was trying to circle behind you. I don't think there's anything else out there.

"Good." Walter pulled open the car door and slid into the driver's seat. "Come on."

•••

After the howls and rattle of gunfire, Arthur had taken control immediately. He had ordered the guards in the hallway into the meeting chamber and set them to securing the room. The meeting chamber was well-equipped for security with reinforced doors and walls and heavy steel shutters that could be locked and barred over the windows.

It was cold comfort to Arthur that he and the rest of the Round Table could be safe in their cage while his people died in the rest of the manor. The servants were noncombatants, dammit!

He was surprised the telephone had not been cut off, but perhaps that was next. His first call was to Walter, his second was to the nearest Army company.

Hugh was at his shoulder. "The RAF and Aberdeen airport if you can get through," he suggested. "Your man has to get here somehow and I should hope he's too clever to think to drive over 500 miles to come to our rescue."

Arthur clapped Hugh on the shoulder and made the calls. Halfway through his call with the administrators of the airport in Aberdeen, "Yes, check my authorization codes, but bloody well do it!" the line finally went dead.

"That's that, I suppose," he said mostly to himself. "Our duty now is to keep the members alive until reinforcements come."

The Tannoy crackled to life and all eyes in the room turned upward to the ceiling-mounted speaker grille and Richard's voice greeted them. He sounded tense and eager, and filled with a seething undercurrent of rage. .

"We can do this the easy way. Just unbar the doors and send Arthur out. Once he's dealt with, there will be no further need to debate who van Helsing's heir is."

To Arthur's surprise, it was Sykes who made a rude noise and shook his head at the rest of the Round Table members. "He can't risk that. If we open the doors, he has to kill us all. I can't even say he'd spare those of us who voted for him; he's just that vicious. I think he's going for a clean sweep"

Aubrey surprised them all. "Then why did you back him?" He looked abashed at speaking up, but Arthur gave him an approving nod. Sometimes Arthur thought he might have to revise his impression of Aubrey as a sad guinea pig. .

Sykes spread his hands and said unapologetically, "I thought I could use him."

Arthur's observation on Sykes' shortsightedness was cut short by Richard. "Don't make this harder than it has to be. The manor is cut off, my forces have already killed most of Arthur's incompetents, and if you give them too much time to get restless... well, I think they might just act like animals."

There was a sound of shuffling and struggle from the speaker, then muffled whimpers. They could hear Richard's voice soothing and cajoling someone before the muffled whimpers suddenly turned into full-throated screams of terror and pain mixed with animalistic snarls.

Richard left the connection open.

The screams went on a very long time.

•••

Walter blessed Arthur's foresight from the cockpit of a Hawker Hunter training jet. He and Doru were crushed together in the trainee's seat while the pilot took them on a high speed flight from Aberdeen to London. To call it "highly irregular" was a charming bit of understatement, but whatever got them to their destination was a highly irregular bit of good fortune.

The trainer had been scrambled for him before he had even reached the airport to demand the fastest transport they had. It touched down and refueled while he was still giving them the identification codes that would authorize this breach of security.

When a confused-looking official had tried to request authorization for Doru, Walter had been ready to beat the man's head against his desk until he got out of the way, but Doru put a cautioning hand on Walter's arm, smiled warmly at the official, and murmured, "There is no problem."

Walter watched the dazed expression spread over the man's features before he murmured back, "There is no problem?"

Doru smiled more and squeezed Walter's arm. "There is no problem."

Less than twenty minutes after Arthur's call they were in the jet and flying directly toward Hellsing manor. No, not the airport, Walter had repeated until the pilot finally gave in. He gave the pilot the exact coordinates and said no, thank you, he would not be needing a parachute, although his companion...?

Doru answered the hanging question with a shake of his head.

No parachutes.

It was too loud in the jet to have a conversation. He settled for trying to relax in Doru's arms. He was pumped full of adrenaline and fear for Arthur, but he knew there was nothing he could do in transit.

They were pushing the outer limits of the jet's flight range, but it was worth the risk.

Forty minutes later, one hour after Arthur had made his call, the pilot gave the signal that they were approaching the right coordinates. Walter did not know if the man saw him twist to give Doru a hard, thorough kiss, and he did not care in the least.

The jet dropped lower and popped its canopy and Walter and Doru stood up to be swept out of the plane by the punishing force of the wind.

Walter whooped with glee despite the situation. There would never be anything better than free fall, except perhaps, free fall with someone to watch his back when they hit the ground.

He pointed Doru toward the manor grounds and tipped his body to guide his fall toward the open sward of the manor grounds. They would search for every invader, and they would destroy every single one.

He cast out a virtual tornado of wires, keeping Doru safe with him in the calm center of the funnel, and used the wire to slow his descent on trees and the sides of the manor until he landed with a hard thump on the grass, knees bent to absorb the shock.

They rose together and were both silent for a moment. There were occasional bursts of gunfire that signaled that not all of Hellsing's soldiers had given up the fight yet.

With a hand on Doru's arm, Walter guided him to a side door. There should have been a guard on the door, and Walter found his body tossed into the hedge.

"Claw marks, not bullets," he observed before opening the door and slipping into the hallway. The lights were still on, making the blood he saw smeared on the black and white checkered tile almost scream up at him. The hall was lined with doors, most of which stood open.

He moved forward to look into the first empty guardroom. There were two dead men tossed casually on the floor, their card table knocked over. Playing cards littered the floor, spattered with spots and lines of blood.

_"Angel!" _

Walter turned back to see Doru standing at the threshold. "Come on!" '

Doru shook his head. "You have to invite me in."

Walter frowned. That was usually a myth or fewer people would succumb to vampire attacks.

As though he could read the thought off Walter's face, Doru hissed, "It's _Hellsing_, Angel. Did you never think it would be protected in other ways than just guns and wires?"

Walter shook his head; there simply wasn't time for an argument when there were people he _knew_ who he could be saving. "I invite you in."

Doru grinned broadly and stepped over the threshold.


	29. I Gave You All

As they walked the checkerboard hall through the staff quarters and deeper into the building, Walter and Doru passed many open doors into rooms painted red with fresh blood. Walter saw familiar faces frozen in the pain and terror that marked their last moments of life. At the first guard post, there was a naked body on the floor, riddled with bullet wounds. He would have congratulated the guard for his success in killing one of the wereghouls, but that would have required assembling the dismembered parts of his body and a miracle.

Walter passed his own bedroom with just a glance to ensure it was empty before he moved on.

Doru strode beside him saying nothing. The vampire was alert but apparently unmoved by the destruction, even amused, if the upward curve of his lips was to be trusted.

He served as the foil to Walter's rising rage. This was _Hellsing!_ This was _his!_

The next guard post was manned by monsters. Two wereghouls bayed an alert and raced toward Walter and Doru. Walter cut them down without a moment's hesitation, using nearly invisible wires to send more blood spraying to join the virtual river of it that already ran down the hall.

From the corner of his eye he saw Doru drag his fingertips along a wall dripping with crimson and bring them to his mouth to lick it away. If they had been anywhere but Hellsing, that might actually have served to distract Walter, at least for an instant.

He held up a hand to stop Doru when he heard the chatter of gunfire again. There were two choke points out of the main hall where the guards could have set up barricades. One led to the main living quarters, the other to the east wing with the conference room and business offices.

He set off at a run, trusting Doru to stay on his heels.

He stopped at the door into the cavernous main hall with its open expanse of bloodstained black and white tile and assessed the situation. The guards had managed to barricade the entrance to the east wing out of the main hall, but at great cost. He saw uniformed bodies among the naked ones of dead wereghouls.

The double doors were torn off their hinges, but the guards had piled furniture from the offices in front of the entrance to provide both a barricade and spaces through which to shoot. Wereghouls lurked on both sides of the open doors out of range of the defenders' weapons. Every so often one would dart in and jerk at part of the barricade, making everything shift and groan.

The doors to the hall that led to the Arthur's living quarters and guest rooms stood wide open and undefended and Walter could see garish splashes of red on the walls and floor there. The entire manor stank like an abattoir and there seemed to be nowhere he could step that he did not walk in the blood of people he'd known.

From his vantage point he couldn't see if the double doors at the base of the wide stairs that led down to the cellars were open, but he didn't expect them to be any more secure than the other doors.

He glanced back at Doru, who had stopped when Walter had. "Just stay back," he cautioned in a whisper. "It's going to be messy in there for a few seconds."

With that, he stepped around the corner and raised his hands to conduct a brief symphony of destruction.

The room filled with glints of reflected light before suddenly going red as blood sprayed from the assembled wereghouls. There was a brief patter of thumps amid the hiss of raining blood while the now disassembled wereghouls fell in pieces to the floor.

There was silence for the space of an indrawn breath before a panicked guard squeezed off a random spray of automatic fire. Walter cut the bullets out of the air with a sweep of his hand.

The gunfire cut off to the sound of cursing from behind the barricade followed by someone's voice, "Sweet Jesus, it's him!" and a ragged cheer from the defenders.

Walter stepped carefully among the fallen bodies and peered through one of the holes in the barricade the defenders had been using as weapon ports.

"How many back there?"

"Six of us guards, sir," came the response. "And four civilians other than the Round Table, but the knights are locked in the conference room. We heard more fire from the staff quarters, but that stopped about ten minutes ago."

"I came through there," Walter said grimly. "They're all gone. How are you doing for ammunition?"

"Could be better." Walter had to smile. It was just such perfect understatement given so blandly that he couldn't help but love his adopted countrymen.

"Give me a moment." He set to collecting weapons and ammunition from the fallen guards to pass through the gaps in the barricade. Glancing around, he didn't see Doru. Perhaps he had been drawn into the open hall into the main quarters. He had to trust that the vampire could take care of himself.

"Any injuries?" he asked after he had collected all the nearby weapons.

"A secretary with a broken ankle, I think. She panicked and fell, but other than that, if they get their claws on you, you're done for."

"You stay back there. Don't let anyone in except me. I'm going to clean up and then I'll be back. Keep the knights in that conference room."

"It was Mr. Hellsing, sir," the guard said. "It was that Richard that let them in. If you see him, remember that. He was on the Tannoy wanting them to put out Sir Arthur. He's out there."

Walter's expression turned grim. "I'll remember."

If Richard had been on the Tannoy, he had to have been in the security office. After glancing around for Doru and not seeing him, he sprinted upstairs to try to hunt down Arthur's traitorous brother.

Upstairs the destruction was just as complete, just as devastating. He passed Lily, the upstairs maid who was planning to leave service in six months to be married, and her friend and fellow maid, Angela. Both had died with expressions of sheer terror on their faces.

It was always harder when he knew the dead, but it was still worse that these were not just people he knew, but noncombatants.

He would tear Richard Hellsing apart. Slowly.

There were wereghouls on the second floor, but not in great numbers. He dispatched each creature ruthlessly until he reached the security office. Before Richard had left, he - or someone else - had smashed the monitors that might have let Walter track the movements of the intruders.

The Tannoy was still in one piece. Walter thumbed the button on the microphone and issued a calm warning. "This is Walter Dornez, trashman of the Hellsing Organization. If you pray, now is the time to do it, because I'm coming to send you to Hell."

He knew Arthur would hear him in the closed conference room. He hoped Richard was still around to hear him and feel fear. He wasn't dead or stranded in Aberdeen; he was coming.

He methodically checked every room on the second floor, killing every wereghoul he found. He found many corpses, but no survivors. On the first floor, he went back through the staff quarters to be certain there were no stragglers he had missed and moved on to the main quarters. The story was the same there - fewer wereghouls than expected and no survivors.

After clearing the kitchen and dining rooms, he stood again in the great hall. He had not come across Doru in his searches and had only the cellars and the dungeons beneath them to search.

The heavy double doors at the bottom of the stairs into the cellars lay shattered on the floor and bloody clawprints told the story of more wereghouls in one place than he had seen on the first or second floors.

"Good," he murmured to himself. It was easier to clean up if the trash was all in one place.

The lights were on down in the cellar. The wereghouls hadn't seemed to need much light to attack him in Aberdeen. With luck that meant that Richard was down there. He couldn't imagine why unless the man had decided to bring down Hellsing by planting explosives at its underpinnings.

The thought gave him a chill all the carnage had not.

He found the first brutally dismembered nude body around the first bend in the corridor. Soon after he found more, all killed in the same manner - heads ripped off, hearts torn out, body parts strewn carelessly on the floor. The air was filled with the smell of blood and other less savory things from punctured stomachs and unraveled intestines. Even the light had a reddish cast from blood that had sprayed up to cover light fixtures.

It was like a descent into Hell.

There were no living souls in the first cellar level, be it wereghoul or guard. Walter found the stairs down into the sub-cellars that Arthur called the dungeons and followed the blood trails through more red-lit slaughter.

Far up ahead around a corner he heard voices, too far to make out meaning, only tone - one pleading and another making a growling demand.

For a moment he thought he saw shadows writhe like tentacles in the bizarre hell light of the bloodied dungeons as though cast by something around that far corner. The pause in speaking was cut by a high pitched scream and then a babble of speech before all went silent again.

The shadows writhed again as he approached; this time he was certain he had seen it and quickened his pace. If he broke into a run, he was certain he would stumble on a piece of a wereghoul. Dismembered bodies made for poor footing.

When he rounded the corner, he stopped at the sight of Doru and Richard standing at an open door. The wall all around the door had been painted with arcane symbols and Walter knew that the door itself was also covered with red-painted symbols. It was the first time he had ever seen the door open.

Doru held Richard up by the front of his shirt, his toes barely brushing the floor. The man was obviously terrified, but Walter saw nothing that could have cast the shadows he had seen when he had approached.

Before Walter could say anything, Doru snarled in Richard's face. "They sent you here for her." He shook Richard and the man flopped like a rag doll. "You can't have her!"

Richard babbled something - a plea for Doru not to bite him, Walter thought as he picked his way forward. The number of wereghouls was greater here than anywhere else in the manor, so Walter surmised that this had been their target, no matter what Richard might have announced on the Tannoy.

"Doru-"

Doru shook Richard again and scornfully said, "I wouldn't bite you. Your blood smells like filth."

Then he raised a long arm and tore Richard's throat out with his bare hand.

He dropped Richard's body and stepped through the door into the murk of the room beyond and Walter hurried to follow him.

The room was unlit and Walter could barely make out Doru's silhouette ahead of him. While he slid a hand down the wall beside the door to find the light switch, he saw Doru's shadowy form kneel.

The harsh white light when he found the switch revealed a room empty save for two coffins. One stood leaning against the far wall, so tall it towered above Walter. The other, beside which Doru knelt, lay on the floor.

Walter approached as Doru laid a hand on the coffin's gleaming surface. It was a rich, light wood, and not nearly so large as the standing coffin.

"Doru?"

The vampire looked up at him, no longer snarling or even faintly amused as he had been upstairs. He looked simply weary. "Richard told me about this. She is why madmen gave him infernal forces to use as he wished."

"She?" Walter asked.

"She is the beginning and the end," Doru murmured, stroking the wood. "Destined to be fought over even when she only wanted peace."

"Then there's someone in there?"

"Yes. Guarded against those who would use her to their own ends, whatever those ends might be."

Doru stroked the wood of the coffin as he had stroked a hand down Walter's back or thigh, then rose to stand over Walter, looking down at him. "But I think..." he reached for Walter's hands and clasped them in his own, "...I think she belongs here after all."

Walter tilted his head up to search Doru's face for some clue to his meaning. Doru squeezed his hands more tightly and bent to brush a kiss against Walter's lips before whispering, "'Tis not strange that even our loves should with our fortunes change."

Walter opened his mouth to ask what Doru meant, but never got the words out of his mouth when the vampire struck, sinking razor teeth into the flesh of his throat.

_God, no._

The pain was instantaneous and searing, but when Walter tried to jerk back, Doru used his hold on Walter's hands to keep him in place. The stories always said that the bite turned to pleasure, but all Walter felt was pain that spread from where Doru had torn his flesh and gripped him down the length of his spine.

He could barely feel Doru's lips against his skin past the agony both of the wound and of his betrayal. He had _trusted_ him.

"Bastard!" He jerked his head, but Doru followed his movement, never parting from his feeding at the gashes in Walter's throat.

Walter thrashed more, kicking him, jamming a knee up to slam into his testicles, slam a heel down on top of his foot, _anything _to get him to let go, but Doru remained attached to him like a leech. Doru drained away his strength, if not his will, with every swallow until Walter sank down to the stone floor, too weak to stand.

Doru followed him down, going to his knees with Walter's hands still gripped tightly in his until he transferred his hold to a one-handed grip and wrapped his free arm around Walter to cradle him against his chest.

When he pulled away from Walter's throat, his skin was flushed as though with exertion, and while Walter was cold, Doru's skin was fever hot against his.

Walter turned his face away when Doru kissed his forehead.

"Look at me, Angel."

Walter squeezed his eyes closed and kept his face turned away.

Doru shook him. _"Look."_

Walter shuddered and kept his face turned away.

"Angel, you don't want to be a ghoul."

Walter shook his head.

"Then look at me."

Walter slowly opened his eyes and turned his face back to look up at Doru's.

"Good." Doru smiled, and Walter could have sworn it looked sad. "I have betrayed you, Walter. In so many ways."

As Walter watched, Doru's features softened and shrank until Mihaela looked down at him and kissed his forehead.

"Mihaela," he breathed, not believing what he was seeing. Perhaps it was an hallucination as he neared death.

"There's more," she said in her little girl's voice. "I am Mihaela, and I am Doru." Her face bloomed out into Doru's again.

"You never saw us together, did you?" Doru asked.

Walter mouthed _No_, too shocked to speak.

As Walter stared up at him, his hair bled from coal black to stark white, and his face grew sharp and savage. He bared razor teeth at Walter and blinked hell-red eyes.

"And you never saw _us_ together, did you?" the white-haired vampire asked.

Walter's brow furrowed. Of course he had. In the house where he killed Christian. He had seen the white-haired vampire and then he had been in the dark in the attic and then... And he had heard Doru fighting him in the deep shelter.

Hadn't he?

"No. You never saw us together." His hair darkened to its former color, his face filled out, and once again Doru looked down at him. His familiar and beloved features within reach if Walter's hands had been free.

"It has all been a lie, Walter. All of it. My name is not Doru, or Mihaela, or deVille." He brought his face down to whisper in Walter's ear. "I am Dracula."

Walter gasped and pulled weakly at the hold Doru - Dracula - had on his hands to no effect. If he had been anyone other than who he was, perhaps he would have wept at his foolishness and the true scope of Dracula's betrayal, but what he felt instead was a swell of rage.

He managed a question, "How?" How had Dracula survived when he was supposed to be dead? How had he involved Richard? How had he known to come to this room? How could he use Walter this way?

_"Why?"_

Any of them. All of them. He wanted so many answers before he became a ghoul. He wanted to destroy Dracula to save himself.

He wanted to have never given any love at all to this monster.

"Through decades of planning. Old Abraham thought he could kill me with just a stake, but I am not some vampire created by another's bite. I was created through will, and so can you be."

Walter looked up at him, uncomprehending.

"Do you hate me, Walter?" Dracula asked.

Walter rasped a fervent, "Yes!"

Dracula smiled, and if it had been Doru, Walter would have said he looked sad, but what did he really know of this creature? Nothing. Everything had been a lie. All of it.

"Then use it." Dracula shook him gently. "Don't let me get away with using you, betraying you, _killing_ you. Hate me. Hate me so deeply that you will not let the grave claim you."

Walter stared up at him. Hate him? Oh God, yes, he hated him. Hours ago he had wanted to tell Doru he loved him and Doru was _Dracula?_

The hate he felt warmed him despite the chill of blood loss. He wanted to see Dracula on his knees begging for his forgiveness.

And would he give it?

_No!_

He mouthed the word and felt the world shift.

No, he would not die. He would _not_ be this monster's ghoul. _He would not give in! _

The air in the room grew thick and Walter felt Dracula release him and lay his body on the floor. He could barely keep his eyes open, but he saw Dracula pick up the tall coffin leaned against the wall and carry it to the door.

Blood crawled across the floor from the bodies Doru had left on the floor. It spilled down the stairs from the first and second floors, streams of blood, rivulets of blood, rivers of blood, all called by Walter's hatred and his will not to die.

The blood flowed past Dracula's shoes and rose up to offer itself to Walter, swaying in a column like a snake before a snake charmer.

Walter mouthed _Yes _and the blood plunged down, into him, arching him up off the floor.

Dracula watched until Walter's eyes, now red, fluttered closed and his body went limp on the floor, then he turned and walked away with the coffin Abraham van Helsing had stolen from him more than fifty years ago.

He left Mina to her rest.


	30. Epilogue There's Nowhere to Hide

The Round Table members had left, escorted by the soldiers who had come too late to do anything but help clean up the slaughter and guard the grounds. The wereghouls' bodies had been taken away for examination and autopsy. After Walter and Dracula's work, most of them had already been dissected after a fashion and Arthur didn't envy the men who had been tasked with quite literally picking up the pieces. The bodies of staff and guards had been taken to a military morgue until a proper story could be concocted to explain so many deaths. Arthur had comforted the surviving noncombatant staff and had them taken to the nearest military hospital until better arrangements could be made for them.

Richard's body had been retrieved from the dungeon and at Arthur's orders was taken away for cremation and disposal in anonymity in some potter's had a call in to Gerard Bernadette, but he did not know if the mercenary would be willing to take another assignment with him now that he knew monsters were real. All of which left him with one last duty to attend to before he could take himself to bed for a few hours before starting the task of rebuilding the Hellsing Organization.

Walter Dornez waited for him in his study. He still looked shell-shocked and withdrawn, the collar of his shirt stained with blood that was already turning brown. He was staring into some middle distance, holding an unlit cigarette in his hand as though he had forgotten about it. Knowing Walter and his nicotine habit as he did, Arthur found that detail both telling and troubling.

Arthur patted him on the shoulder as he walked past him to take the whiskey bottle and a tumbler from the shelf behind his desk. He nearly offered Walter a drink, then caught himself. No, that would have been crass to say the least.

Neither of them spoke until Arthur had poured himself two fingers of whiskey, downed it and put away both the tumbler and bottle. He wanted to fortify himself, not get pissed.

"I spoke with the other knights before they left," Arthur began after he had taken a seat behind his desk, then waited until Walter came back from wherever his thoughts had been and focused on him. "And they agree that there can be an exception made for you. We were all taken in by Dracula and by Richard and we all agree that your service is far too valuable to discard."

He did not know what reaction he had expected from Walter, but it was not the blank silence that he got. It unnerved him in a way silence from Walter never had before. Perhaps because he had never sat down to have a conversation with a vampire before.

He did not fully understand what had happened, and Walter had not vouchsafed exact details of his transformation. The stories the remaining guards had told of blood flowing away as though the world had tilted to change which way down was made little sense to him, but neither did the fact that Walter was a vampire and not a ghoul. If nothing else Bernadette's report had made it amply clear that his butler was no virgin.

All Walter had said in response to Arthur's shocked question of _"How?" _was "Hate."

Arthur had decided that he could wait to press Walter for further details after they had both had time to take care of the immediate demands of this disaster. In Arthur's case, there were more demands than ever before because he could not turn to Walter to handle the details the way he always had before. It had been illuminating as to how much he truly relied on the young man, and now he did not know if he would ever be able to turn to him in the same way again.

"You'll need a coffin, I suppose," he said when Walter did not respond for long enough for Arthur to grow restless. "But it will have to be specially made."

Walter shifted and drew in a deep breath for the first time, making Arthur realize that part of the reason he had been so unsettled by Walter's stillness was because he had not taken a breath since Arthur had entered the room.

"He went without a coffin for years. I can wait."

Arthur wanted to say something that would offer some measure of comfort, but that would violate the unspoken code of the stiff upper lip. If Walter wanted to tackle this change of fortune in silence, far be it from Arthur Hellsing to force him to unseemly demonstrations of emotion.

He cleared his throat and stood up. "Forgive me for saying it, but I must: can I trust you not to hurt my men?"

Walter turned an emotionless gaze up to him and said, "I am filled with the blood of every man and woman who died here tonight. I'm not hungry."

That did not set Arthur's mind at ease in the least. "Walter-"

"No. I will not kill any human here. I am the true undead. Not some pathetic creature that hasn't the sense to know that it should stay in its grave."

•••

"Disappointing."

"Don't look at it that way, Doctor, your specimens performed beautifully for their debut." The speaker had to pause every few words for another bite of his meal, but his audience was unfazed. Their commander had to keep himself well-fueled after all.

"But we did not get the woman. She would have moved our project ahead immeasurably." The doctor twined and untwined his fingers nervously, gnawed on his lip, shuffled his feet, and generally seemed too wound up to stay still in the company of his commander and his looming bodyguard. "Especially after Dracula broke his word and killed the lieutenant before I could even get samples from her."

The diminutive mastermind waved that away with the hand holding his fork. "Betrayal is all part of the game. We used Dracula, he used us, and if we cannot have his Mina, he has left another even better prize for us to pluck in the future. The butler is, as they say, a self-made man."

The doctor's eyes lit up. "What I could do with him will exceed even what I have achieved with what we have learned from the Captain."

After all, the Captain was a resource the doctor was forced to keep alive and functional. He would have no such constraints with the butler.

•••

Walter finally understood what Dracula had said to him about feeling the sun like a weight. It had not yet even risen above the horizon and Walter could feel it pressing him deep into the earth. He retreated down into the sub-cellar to find an empty room in which he could drop a folding army cot. He wanted his bed, but the thought of going upstairs, even with his blackout curtains, made something dark and inhuman inside him recoil in loathing.

Perhaps when he was as old as Dracula he would be able to tolerate resting above ground, but this was his first dawn and he could not face it like a man.

He lay in the cot and let the emptiness that had taken the place of his humanity swell and sweep him away from the oppression of the sun he could feel but not see.

This time when he opened his eyes in a dream, he knew it for what it was. Irdu sat across from him in the same stone room where he had fallen asleep, looking at him sorrowfully.

"Oh, Walter," he murmured. "I am so sorry."

Walter sat up. "What do you want?" Surely no one could fault him for having no trust left to give.

Irdu seemed to understand that he would find fallow ground for any dissembling. "I want your seed."

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm a vampire now," Walter said contemptuously. "The dead don't create life."

"Perhaps," Irdu conceded, "but perhaps not. There may be a spark of life left in the seed you created before you died. I'm asking you for this last chance. It is your only chance to ever have a child."

Walter considered him for so long that even the incubus was certain he would say no, then asked, "Can you make me forget the dream of us together? Just leave me enough to know I made this agreement with you?"

"Yes."

"Swear it."

"I swear."

Walter looked down at his hands and swallowed twice to loosen the tightness in his throat enough to whisper, "Then bring me a dream of Doru."

_~Fin~_

* * *

_AN: I started Hunting the Hunter in October of 2006 and this was always where it was going to end up. I didn't know most of the twists and turns it would take along the way, but I knew that it would end with Walter betrayed and a vampire. I know it's probably not in the best taste, but I have loved this story. There are chapters I don't love, or even particularly like, there are a couple of places I jossed myself (and I'm not going to point them out if you didn't notice them), and a few places where ten chapters later I went "OMG I foreshadowed this and I didn't even know I was going to do it!" This story started out because I wanted to write another AxW pairing fic, but it went places I never expected. _

_I have a feeling I'm going to get some feedback along the lines of "You can't stop here!" and you're right, I can't, but I don't know that I'll write what comes next as fanfiction or not. For the past year at least I've thought about what comes after Walter becomes a vampire and I do want to write it, I just don't know if I'll write it in this venue or not. Up next for me is writing the novels I have outlined, so we'll just have to see what time brings. In the meantime, if you want to ask me any questions about any events of Hunting the Hunter, you can ask me in reviews or private message me. I'll start putting replies in a FAQ in my author profile here on ff net.  
_

_Thank you for coming along for the ride, I hope you've enjoyed it. ~Jade  
_


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